AUGUST 2023 CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) Rs.

25

MANIPUR BURNING
Growing Crisis of
Humanity in
Modi’s India
CALL OF JULY 28

J uly 28, 2023 marks the 51st anniversary of the

martyrdom of Comrade Charu Mazumdar,
the founder General Secretary of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). It also marks the
49th anniversary of the reorganisation of the party
following the severe crackdown and setback of the
early 1970s. We pay our deepest respect to all our
martyrs and departed leaders and comrades on
this occasion.

We started this year with the successful holding of

the 11th Congress of our Party in Patna. The “Save
Democracy, Save India” clarion call issued by the
Party Congress today resonates across the country.
Powerful protests and struggles are breaking out in
different parts of India on the burning issues of the
day. The process of forging a broad-based unity of
opposition parties initiated from our Congress has gathered momentum.

After two rounds of meetings of several opposition parties, a broad coalition has taken
shape under the banner of INDIA – Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.
Along with a whole range of non-BJP parties, our Party is a committed constituent of this
coalition. We will have to intensify our efforts and expand our role on all fronts to carry
forward this process.

The success of our political initiatives depends first of all on our organisational strength,
our ties with the oppressed and toiling masses and the progressive intelligentsia and
our ability to assert as a fighting political force in all our areas of work. The emphasis on
grassroot level Party organisations – Party branches and Party Local Committees – must
be kept up and taken as the key link to ensure a vigorous and all-out mobilisation for the
crucial electoral battle ahead of us.

The people of India have suffered immensely over the last nine years of Modi regime.
The anti-people policies and repressive measures inflicted by the state and the reign of
hate, violence and fear unleashed by the lynch squads and mobs instigated by the hate
campaign of the Sangh-BJP brigade have landed the country in an unprecedented crisis.
What happened in Jammu and Kashmir since August 2019 and what is happening in
Manipur since May 2023 are not isolated examples; we have before us glimpses of what
is going to happen across India if this BJP rule and domination continues any longer.

We must therefore summon all our strength and energy, courage and determination
to defeat the BJP and vote out the Modi regime in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
In the process we must emerge as a powerful voice of the people’s movement and
as a leading Left force in the political arena of India. Let all of us pledge our best
efforts and highest contributions for the success of this mission. Long live revolution,
long live CPI(ML)! n
 EDITORIAL

The Horrific Assaults on Kuki

Women Hold a Mirror to the
New Series Vol. 29 No. 04
AUGUST 2023 Growing Crisis of Humanity
CONTENTS
in Modi’s India
COVER FEATURE
� Politics of UCC 05
COMMENTARY
�Message of Bengaluru Meeting 10
�Farce of Modi's Anti-corruption Diatribe 11
�Modi's US & France Visits 12
POLICY WATCH
�National Research Foundation 15
�Personal Data Protection Bill 16
�Higher Education 22
�Forest Policy 24
REPORTS 26
OBITUARY 34

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

T
Dipankar Bhattacharya
he viral video of two Kuki women being paraded naked and sexually
EDITOR
Arindam Sen assaulted by a mob of Meitei men in Manipur has drawn the attention of
EDITORIAL BOARD the whole world to the complete collapse of the rule of law in Manipur.
V. Shankar The incident had happened in the presence of the local police on the 4th of
Sanjay Sharma May, the day after violence erupted in the state. The FIR about the incident
Sucheta De was filed on 18 May, and a complaint was mailed to the National Commission
Ajit Patil for Women by two women activists and the North American Manipur Tribal
Clifton D' Rozario Association on 12 June. Yet it was only after the video had become viral and
Maitreyi Krishnan
the Supreme Court took suo moto cognizance of the crime that the BJP-led
Akash Bhattacharya
‘double engine’ governments acknowledged the incident and some arrests
Editors' e-mail: are being reported.
liberation@cpiml.org
It took this video and the Supreme Court warning for Narendra Modi to utter
Art: V Arun Kumar the M word for the first time after 79 days of uninterrupted violence in Manipur
Manager: Prabhat Kumar that has already claimed more than 150 lives and led to the displacement
Phone: 7042877713 of more than fifty thousand people, destruction and desecration of more
Website: liberation.org.in than two hundred churches and large-scale loot of arms and weapons from
E-mail: manager.liberation@gmail.com police stations. Modi’s talk of pain and anguish over the Manipur video was
36 pages including covers
however only part of a generalised call for women’s safety and dignity as he
Annual Subscription Rates unscrupulously clubbed the Manipur incident with instances of attacks on
India Rs. 300 women in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, two poll-bound Congress-ruled states.
Abroad US$ 60 Clearly, the whole attempt is to trivialise the incident and remove it from the
Digital Subscription Rs. 200 context where the predominantly Christian Kuki hill tribe is at the receiving
Online Payment: liberation.org.in
end of a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Pay By Bank transfer:
Account Name: Liberation Publications Facts, even those obliquely admitted by the Manipur CM, completely debunk
Account No.: 90502010091855 Modi’s calculated shedding of crocodile tears. CM N Birendra Singh has
IFSC Code: CNRB0019050
MICR Code.: 110015388
admitted to more than one hundred cases of attacks on women, while adding
Bank: Canara Bank
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 EDITORIAL
that internet has been shut down precisely to stop such
events from coming to light! The Manipur Governor has
said that she had never seen such kind and scale of violence
and she has kept the Union Government informed. Close
to 6,000 FIRs have been filed between 4 May and 28 June,
the first eight weeks of the violence. It is now known that
within one hour of the horrific incident caught in the
viral video clip, there was another incident in the Meitei-
dominated Konung Manag area of Imphal where two Kuki
sisters, aged 21 and 24, were gang-raped and killed. The
victims’ father, a pastor, had filed an FIR on 16 May, and yet
till date there has been no action against the perpetrators.
Instead of taking responsibility for the complete collapse
of governance and taking any measures, even issuing
an appeal, for restoration of peace in Manipur, the
government is busy threatening Twitter for the posting
of the video clip. BJP leaders are questioning the timing of
the release of the viral video just on the eve of the Monsoon
Session of Parliament. Some mischievous news agencies
even tried to give the whole thing an anti-Muslim twist by
falsely presenting the arrest of a Muslim man in another
case in Manipur as the arrest of the main accused in the
viral video case of naked parading and sexual assault. It
was reportedly the circulation of fake news, a case of rape
which happened in Delhi and was propagated on social
media as an attack on Meitei women in Manipur, which is
believed to have triggered the horrific May 4 assaults on
Kuki women. One can easily see the sinister design behind
the fake news that tried to find a Muslim perpetrator
behind the attacks on Kuki women.
Why has the Modi government allowed Manipur to burn
continuously for the last three months? Some analysts
believe that the government actually wants to bring
about a demographic shift in the state so that the Kuki
community can be stripped of its land rights over the hilly
forest areas of Manipur so the rare earth minerals lying
underneath can be handed over to mining companies and
Manipur turned into a laboratory of corporate plunder. The
growing portrayal of Kukis as infiltrators from Myanmar
by the Manipur government seems designed to create a
permanent state of ethnic rift and polarisation that would
transform Manipur, like Assam, into another laboratory
of aggressive majoritarianism. The Sangh-BJP politics
of divide and rule and anti-minority hate campaigns and
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the promotion of the culture of mob violence that has
turned India into a republic of hate and fear has pushed
Manipur with its historical fault-lines and complexities
into a veritable tinderbox. Before the BJP came to power
in Manipur in 2017, Narendra Modi had famously accused
the Congress of having forfeited the right to govern
precisely because of its alleged failure to enforce peace
in Manipur. Today the time has come for Modi to apply the
same principle to its own ‘double engine’ governments
and secure the resignation of the Manipur CM and Union
Home Minister.
From Gujarat in 2002 to Khairlanji in 2006, Kandhamal
in 2008 and now Manipur in 2023, women's bodies
have always become the site of targeted majoritarian
violence echoing Savarkar’s justification of rape as a
legitimate political tool in his book Six Glorious Epochs
of Indian History. The case of Bilkis Bano also tells us how
protracted and difficult the battle for justice is in such
cases. If Bilkis Bano had through a long and courageous
struggle succeeded in getting the perpetrators of rape
and murder convicted, the Modi government reversed
the course by releasing them from jail on the occasion of
the 75th anniversary of India’s independence to a hero’s
welcome accorded by the Sangh brigade. It can hardly
be missed that on the same day that this video became
public, Brij Bhushan was granted bail in the wrestlers’
sexual harassment case, and Ram Rahim, a double rape and
murder convict, was granted parole for the seventh time.
It was the women of Manipur who had bravely protested
against the brutal rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama
and drawn the attention of the whole world to the reality
of state repression in Manipur. The horrific reality of
violence against Kuki women should become the turning
point to trigger a mass outrage to end the current reign
of institutionalised insecurity in Manipur and pave the
way to restoration of peace on the basis of truth and
reconciliation, justice and rule of law. However much
the Modi regime may try and trivialise the reign of state-
sponsored violence in Manipur, the state holds a mirror to
the complete collapse of governance and growing crisis of
humanity in Modi's India. Gujarat 2002 had led to the exit
of the Vajpayee regime in 2004, let Manipur 2023 arouse
India to end the disastrous Modi rule in 2024. n
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Yes to Gender Justice and Equality,
No to the Politics of Communal
Polarisation and Demonisation of
Muslims in the Name of UCC!
\ DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA
S
hortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised
the pitch of the clamour for the Uniform Civil Code
in the course of his address to booth-level BJP
activists in Bhopal, a viral video surfaced from the same
state that showed a power-drunk BJP youth leader Pravesh
Shukla urinating on an Adivasi labourer Dasmat Ravat.
The video gave a shocking and graphic portrayal of the
kind of (un)civil code that actually prevails on the ground
in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP has been in power for
nearly two decades. It is no secret that such acts of cruelty
towards marginalised and oppressed social groups have
been going on with impunity in almost all BJP-dominated
states in West and North India. The Manusmriti, upheld
by the Sangh brigade as their real constitution, actually
provides social sanction for extreme forms of caste and
gender discrimination and violence.
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention
of Atrocities) Act, 1989 had acknowledged this shocking
social reality of caste violence and sought to curb it with
more stringent legal provisions. But with the rise of the BJP
and its aggressive politics of Hindutva, the Act has been
rendered increasingly ineffective and there is a growing
clamour for its dilution and even revocation. At the same
time there has been a phenomenal increase in orchestrated
hate crimes against the religious minorities, Muslims
in particular. In the Modi era, mob lynching emerged
as a new form of decentralised and privatised violence
while the bulldozer became a new symbol of extra-
judicial perpetration of revenge and terror by the state.
Communal hate, caste atrocities and gender violence have
grown simultaneously, one encouraging the other, even
though the dominant media often remains complicit in
downplaying and even legitimising communal hate crimes.
With elections round the corner and Adivasi votes being
a significant factor in the Madhya Pradesh elections, the
Shivraj Singh Chauhan government has desperately
resorted to some damage control exercises. The Chief
Minister circulated a video of ‘penance’ where he can
be seen ceremonially washing the feet of Dasmat Ravat,
calling him his brother and assuring him of all help while
a bulldozer was sent to demolish a section of Pravesh
COVER FEATURE
Shukla’s house and a video circulated showing Shukla
being herded into a police vehicle. Clearly none of this
would have happened if the video had not become viral and
elections were not imminent. It is also clear that for every
such incident that comes to limelight there are dozens
more that never get any attention. Even as a terrorised
Dasmat can be seen pleading for 'forgiving' his oppressor
Pravesh Shukla, a new viral video shows two Adivasi youths
being brutally thrashed in Indore.
How are we to look at the issue of uniform civil code
against the backdrop of institutionalised denial of human
dignity and rights in a system of social discrimination and
oppression, hate and violence and political patronage and
impunity for the perpetrators except when a perpetrator
becomes an electoral liability like Pravesh Shukla in this
Madhya Pradesh episode? The 22nd Law Commission has
sought public opinion on the subject within a month’s
time without giving us any idea as to what such a uniform
code would entail. History tells us that after a sharp debate
on the subject, the Constituent Assembly had settled
for including it as a directive principle of state policy
in the Constitution which by definition is not legally
enforceable or justiciable. Babasaheb Ambedkar had
wanted the idea of uniform civil code to remain voluntary
for citizens. Even the 21st Law Commission had found
the UCC neither necessary nor feasible at the present
juncture and called instead for appropriate legal reforms
to ensure gender justice and equality within the ambit of
all personal laws. What has suddenly happened for the
22nd Law Commission to focus on the subject with such
great urgency?
While the government is yet to come out with any concrete
proposal about its idea of a uniform civil code, the Sangh-
BJP propagandists are already busy maligning the Muslim
community and painting every opposition to the UCC idea
as instigation or appeasement of the Muslim community.
In real life, we can already see serious apprehension and
opposition being voiced not so much by the Muslim
community as by North-Eastern states like Meghalaya
and Nagaland and Adivasi communities from all parts
of India. Home Minister Amit Shah and Chairman of the
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 5
 COVER FEATURE
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law Sushil Modi
have already indicated that Christians and North-Eastern
States may be exempted from the ambit of the UCC. This
is precisely the reason why the framers of the Constitution
had kept the idea of the UCC in the directive principles
and even as late as 2018, the 21st Law Commission had
found the UCC neither necessary nor feasible. In fact,
the diversity of customs in personal law concerns Hindus
themselves, whose customs vary widely across regions, as
much as non-Hindu religions and communities.
The 21st Law Commission was right in emphasising
the need to reconcile diversity with equality instead of
trying to impose uniformity in the name of unity. Quite
surprisingly, even former RSS chief Golwalkar had
categorically cautioned against the idea of imposing a
uniform civil code on a vast and diverse country like India.
Harmony, rather than uniformity, Golwalkar had pointed
out in a long interview with KR Malkani, editor of the RSS
mouthpiece Organiser in 1971, was necessary for India’s
unity. The Modi government today is however in a hurry
to abandon the caution advised by its own ideological and
administrative predecessors as it believes that it has today
reached a stage where it need not respect any restraint and
that the UCC was its best bet to distract public attention
from the pressing problems of the day and polarise India
on communal lines.
Legal reform to ensure equality and justice is a continuing
agenda and as directed by Article 44 of the Constitution
the state must consistently move in this direction to
ensure gender-just laws for women of all communities.
CPI(ML)’s Submission to
The 22nd Law Commission on
the Uniform Civil Code
On July 11, 2023, CPI(ML) submitted it's response
to the Public Notice issued by the 22nd Law
Commission of India on the subject of Uniform Civil
Code. Below is full text of the submission:
T
he 22nd Law Commission of India has issued a
public notice to solicit the views of the public and
“recognised religious organisations” about the
Uniform Civil Code. The notice states that: “Initially the
21st Law Commission of India had examined the subject
on Uniform Civil Code and solicited the views of all the
stakeholders through its appeal along with a questionnaire
dated 07.10.2016 and further public appeals/notices dated
19.03.2018, 27.03.2018 and 10.4.2018. Pursuant to the
same, overwhelming responses have been received by
6 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
And to implement Article 44 it cannot proceed in a vacuum
without collective participation and concurrence of all
stakeholders. Further, if the Modi government wants to
accelerate the implementation of the directive principles
of state policy, it cannot selectively focus on Article 44
to the neglect of other equally fundamental directives
contained in the concerned section of the Constitution
under Articles 36 to 51 that mandate the state to ensure
universal right to work and guarantee of livelihood and
reduction of income inequality and concentration of
wealth and means of production in few hands.
Yet we cannot pretend that the current focus of the BJP
on implementation of the UCC has anything to do with
ensuring gender justice or with the spirit of the directive
principles of state policy. In reality, the foregrounding of
the UCC agenda is part of the broader project of communal
polarisation and demonisation of Muslims. Along with the
vicious myth of ‘love jihad’ the UCC is being promoted with
barely disguised appeals to the preposterous narrative of
‘Muslims outnumbering Hindus’ epitomised by Modi’s
notorious and absurdly inaccurate claims about the effects
of polygamy on population growth. The opposition must
foil this design, keep the focus on the burning issues like
the escalating cost of living crisis and unemployment
and defend the constitutional vision of a modern secular
democratic India against every attempt to push the
country back to universalisation of the Manusmriti code of
social oppression and violence. Yes to gender justice and
equality, no to the politics of communal polarisation and
demonisation of Muslims in the name of UCC! n
the Commission. The 21st Law Commission has issued
the consultation paper on “Reforms of Family Law” on
31.08.2018. Since more than three years have been lapsed
from the date of issuance of the said Consultation Paper,
bearing in mind the relevance and importance of the
subject and also the various Court orders on the subject,
the 22nd Law Commission of India considered it expedient
to deliberate afresh over the subject. Accordingly, the 22nd
Law Commission of India decided again to solicit views
and ideas of the public at large and recognized religious
organizations about the Uniform Civil Code.”
The Public Notice that has been issued calls upon the
public and “recognised religious organisations” to
provide views and ideas about the UCC, does not speak
 COVER FEATURE

to what the exercise chooses to achieve and provides inequality lies in discrimination and not in difference.
no justification for this exercise or the elevated status Any attempt to amend personal laws must have as its
to “recognised religious organisations” over other civil focus the need to address the inequality in order to
society organisations. ensure the Constitutional guarantee of equality, rather
than imposing uniformity. What is required is law reform
Consultation Paper of the and institutional reform that will lead to gender justice.
21st Law Commission: The present exercise of the 22nd Law Commission aims to
In June 2016, through a reference by the Government revive a settled debate on the necessity and desirability of
of India, the Law Commission was entrusted with the UCC. With only a generic statement in the public notice
task of addressing the issues concerning a Uniform that “more than three years have been lapsed from the
Civil Code. On 31st August, 2018, the Law Commission date of issuance of the said Consultation Paper”, and a
of India, headed by Chairman Justice (Retd) B. S. Chauhan, vague assertion about the “relevance and importance of
brought out a Consultation Paper on Reform of Family the subject”, there are no compelling reasons presented
Law that dealt in detail with the Uniform Civil Code and for redoing the entire exercise and that too within such
the need for reform of personal laws. The Commission at short period.
the outset notes that while “various aspect of prevailing
personal laws disprivilege women”, it is “discrimination Report of the High Level Committee
and not difference which lies at the root of inequality” on the Status of Women in India
and finds that the “best way forward may be to preserve (HLCSW) chaired by Dr Pam Rajput:
the diversity of personal laws but at the same time ensure
The High Level Committee on the Status of Women in
that personal laws do not contradict fundamental rights
India (HLCSW) chaired by Dr Pam Rajput, which
guaranteed under the Constitution of India.”
submitted its Report in June, 2015, undertook
The Law Commission recognized that a comprehensive study on the status of
“women must be guaranteed their women, to evolve appropriate policy
We are all for
freedom of faith without any compromise interventions. It also looked at the issue
on their right to equality”. It emphasized legal reforms to of personal laws and the Uniform Civil
the need to celebrate the diversity of ensure equality and Code and provides a guiding principle on
Indian culture, while also ensuring that gender justice in all how to approach the issue of inequality
specific groups or marginalized sections communities and of women in personal laws and states:“…
of society are not disadvantaged in the The approach should be not one of
regions, and we
process. It emphasized the need for ensuring that there is one law for all,
reforming family laws across religions strongly oppose any but rather, that all women, whether they
to ensure gender justice, rather than move to disregard choose to be governed by secular laws
implementing a Uniform Civil Code the cultural diversity or their personal laws, enjoy equality
(UCC), which it said was “neither of India in the name which the Indian Constitution promises
necessary nor desirable at this stage” them. This requires addressing several
of imposing any
aspects in the legal domain in specific
The 21st Law Commission made uniformity on all. ways rather than a diktat of ‘uniformity’,
various practical recommendations The idea should be which is conceived of in fundamentalist/
in regard to Marriage and Divorce,
to ensure equality majoritarian ways.”. The Report further
Custody and Guardianship, Adoption
and reconcile it with notes that “There is a need to address
and Maintenance, and Succession and
discrimination not only de jure but also
Inheritance and suggested reforms in the diversity and not pit
de facto, which necessitates State to
personal laws of all religions as well as the one against the other.
adopt laws, policies and practices and
secular laws to remove the disadvantage
undertake proactive, measures and
women face. However, till date none of
affirmative action in order to obliterate
the recommendations have been implemented.
these discriminatory provisions and practices. Thus, all
Personal Laws across religions contain provisions personal laws should be in tandem with the principle of
that are discriminatory towards women and violate equality. Women are working and contributing to the
the fundamental tenet of equality guaranteed by the family and society in many ways and it is high time the
Constitution. However, the belief that a “Uniform Civil State recognizes the unpaid contributions of women in
Code” is an answer to this would be patently incorrect. their families, The State should enact laws in areas of
It is imperative to acknowledge that the root cause of matrimonial property in which no personal laws exist

LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 7

 COVER FEATURE
and ensure women’s rights to the property and assets in
the natal and as well as in the matrimonial home.”
The Report also made recommendations pertaining
to personal laws of all religions in aspects regarding
marriage, custody, maintenance and inheritance and also
in secular laws to eliminating the disadvantage faced by
women.
In a significant observation, the High Level Committee on
the Status of Women in India highlights that Article 44 of
the Constitution, which calls for the State to endeavour
to secure for a Uniform Civil Code, has been given new
meaning where various laws such as the Protection of
Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Prohibition
of Child Marriage Act, 2006 and the Medical Termination
of Pregnancy Act, 1971 have been brought in that are
universally applicable to women from all communities.
Thus it sees that the way to safeguard women’s rights
could be seen as two pronged – one by enacting laws
such as those mentioned above, which are universally
applicable to women of all communities, irrespective
of their religion, and second through introduction of a
particular aspect for reform in all existing laws.
We note that the Law Commission has, to date, ignored
this report.
Actual steps towards gender justice:
The 21st Law Commission’s Consultative Paper found
that mere uniformity would not necessarily mean equality
and equity, and “a ‘united‘ nation need not necessarily
have ‘uniformity‘ it is making diversity reconcile with
certain universal and indisputable arguments on human
rights.”
The need today is law reform and institutional reform that
will lead to gender justice. It is imperative that any steps
towards bringing about changes in personal laws is first de-
linked from the Uniform Civil Code. What is needed today
is law reform keeping in focus the principles of equality,
personal autonomy, dignity, non-discrimination, liberty,
inclusivity and Constitutional morality. Such reform
must ensure that discriminatory provisions in personal
and secular law are removed and brought in line with
these principles. This means that when it comes to the
right to divorce, adoption, guardianship and succession,
both men and women should have equal rights. It is also
necessary that reform is brought in that addresses (dis)
honour killings, ensures protection to inter-caste and
inter-faith couples, recognizes the autonomy of women
to decide their partners, and recognizes same sex and
transgender marriages and relationships.
While fully supporting the demand to reform personal laws
to uphold women’s equality and dignity, the bid to open
the debate on ‘Uniform Civil Code’ must be viewed with
8 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
caution and opposed in the current communal climate.
The manner in which the BJP frames the issue of Uniform
Civil Code and reforms in personal laws suggests that
they are concerned more with imposing a communally-
defined majoritarian uniformity on minorities in the
country, rather than address concerns of gender justice.
The communal framing of the debate does serious damage
to the urgent questions of gender justice. It is important to
recognize that the discourse around the uniform civil code
is being brought in to merely exploit and communalize
the issue and target religious minorities, and has nothing
to do with gender justice.
Adivasis and other cultures:
The UCC will potentially severely compromise the
unique customs, usages and practices of Adivasis and is
another effort to forcibly bring these communities into
the Hindu fold. This will also dismantle the Constitutional
privileges and protections given to Adivasis. Further there
are constitutional limits (Articles 371A to 371I) on the
Parliament to interfere with the customary laws and
practices of Scheduled Tribes particularly in the North
Eastern states.
It is for this reason that Adivasis across the country have
expressed serious reservations over UCC and warned
against any interference with their customs and traditions.
The widespread apprehension and opposition to the UCC
proposal from different quarters across the country once
again underscores the need for extensive deliberations
among all stakeholders to thrash out a collective
agreement and consensus on the subject. This is the spirit
with which the framers of the Constitution had included
the subject as one of the directive principles of state policy
under Article 44 wherein the state was mandated to strive
to secure it for all citizens. We should also remember that
Dr Ambedkar had wisely advised to keep the civil code
voluntary. The reopening of the UCC agenda without
outlining what it would entail has already created a lot
of confusion and reinforced communal polarisation and
demonisation of certain sections of the society. Legal
reform is a continuous agenda and any hurried attempt
to foreground the issue without sufficient time and
discussion is highly unwarranted, especially when the
republic is approaching a general election.
We therefore see no reason to reopen the agenda in
violation of the well thought-out advice of the 21st Law
Commission. We are all for legal reforms to ensure equality
and gender justice in all communities and regions, and
we strongly oppose any move to disregard the cultural
diversity of India in the name of imposing any uniformity
on all. The idea should be to ensure equality and reconcile
it with diversity and not pit one against the other. n
 COVER FEATURE

UCC is another effort to forcibly bring

Indigenous Communities into the Hindu fold:
Adivasi Sangharsh Morcha
We are surprised that the Law Commission is seeking views on the UCC, despite the Law Commission’s
own Consultation Paper dated 31st August 2018, finding “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”. As
such re-opening this issue without any justification creates serious apprehension in our minds about the
purpose of this exercise.
While it is rightly being apprehended that the UCC is being used as a tool to undermine the status of religious
minorities, it will also severely compromise the unique customs, usages and practices of Adivasis and is another
effort to forcibly bring these communities into the Hindu fold. This will also dismantle the Constitutional
privileges and protections given to Adivasis. Further there are constitutional limits (Articles 371A to 371I)
on the Parliament to interfere with the customary laws and practices of Scheduled Tribes particularly in
the North Eastern states.
It is for this reason that, Adivasis, across the country have expressed serious reservations over UCC and
warned against any interference with their customs and traditions. Please note that the chairman of the
Parliamentary Committee on Law and Justice, Mr. Sushil Kumar Modi has reportedly assured that the
indigenous populations in the Northeast and other parts of the country ought to be kept out of the UCC.
(Excerpts from the letter dated 13 July 2023 by Adivasi Sangharsh Morcha to Law Commission of India) n

AIPWA’s submission to
the 22nd Law Commission on the UCC

A
IPWA acknowledges
that the Personal Laws
across religions contain
provisions that are discriminatory
towards women and violate the
fundamental tenet of equality
guaranteed by the Constitution.
However, the belief that a "Uniform
Civil Code" is an answer, is not true.
It is known that the root cause of
inequality lies in discrimination
and not in difference. Any attempt
to amend personal laws must
address the inequality, to ensure
the Constitutional guarantee of
equality, rather than imposing
uniformity. What is required is law
reform and institutional reform
that will lead to gender justice.
Till date, various laws such as
the Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the
Prohibition of Child Marriage Act,
2006 and the Medical Termination
of Pregnancy Act, 1971 have been
brought in which are universally
applicable to women from all
communities.
Women’s work should
recognised and given due social
dignity. Women are working and
contributing to the family and
society in many ways, and it is
high time the State recognizes the
unpaid contributions of women in
their families, The State should also
enact laws in areas of matrimonial
property in which no personal
laws exist and ensure women's
rights to the property and assets
in the natal and as well as in the
matrimonial home. Also, personal
laws of all religions regarding
marriage, custody, maintenance,
and inheritance and in secular laws,
must eliminate the disadvantage
faced by women. The Constitutional
privileges and protections given to
Adivasis and constitutional limits
(Articles 371A to 3711) regarding
be
the customary laws and practices
of Scheduled Tribes particularly
in the Northeastern states must
be protected.
We are all for legal reforms to
ensure equality and gender justice
in all communities and regions,
and we strongly oppose any move
to disregard the cultural diversity of
India in the name of imposing any
uniformity on all. The idea should
be to ensure equality and reconcile
it with diversity and not pit one
against the other. n

LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 9

 COMMENTARY
The Message of the
Bengaluru Meeting of Opposition Parties
T
he successful second conclave
of Opposition parties in
Bengaluru and the emergence
of a new coalition with the acronym
INDIA have clearly rattled the Modi
regime. The desperation to put up
a parallel 'alliance' show in Delhi
on the same day by discovering and
manufacturing new parties from all
corners of India showed the growing
nervousness of the regime.
This marks such a stark contrast to
the BJP's arrogant boast of ruling
India unchallenged for the next
50 years! Remember JP Nadda's
arrogant statement in Patna a year
ago that the days of regional parties
in India were over? Remember
Narendra Modi's 'ek akela' boast
in Rajya Sabha on February 9 this
year when he said that one man
had proved to be heavier than the
collective might of many in this
country?
The arrogant power-drunk BJP today
is desperately trying to revive the
dormant NDA banner ahead of the
10 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
\ DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA
2024 elections. Its arrogance led
several of its former long-standing
allies like the Shiv Sena, Akali Dal
and JDU to sever their ties with the
BJP. The same BJP is now trying to
split these parties and accommodate
splinter groups as its allies. It
engineered a split in the LJP after
Ramvilas Paswan's demise and now
it is playing the number game by
presenting the single former party
as two new-found allies!
A jittery Modi camp is now trying
to pit India against Bharat, thereby
once again revealing its contempt
for the Constitution of India. "India,
that is Bharat, shall be a Union of
States", says the very first Article of
the Constitution of India. The Modi
government wants to drive a wedge
between India and Bharat and reduce
the states of India to the status of
colonies of an over-centralising
Union Government.
The Modi government knows only
one model of governance. It cannot
rule except by waging a constant
war on India - the constitutional
foundation and federal framework
of India's democracy, the composite
culture and diversity of India's social
fabric, the rights and liberties of
India's citizens and the survival and
dignity of India's toiling millions.
India will have to summon all its
strength to overcome this calamity
about which Dr. Ambedkar had
forewarned us right at the time of
adoption of India's Constitution. The
constitutional vision of a sovereign
socialist secular democratic republic
must prevail over the nightmare of
the all-round anarchy and crisis that
the Modi regime has inflicted on the
country.
The message from Patna and
Bengaluru must now be taken to
the people in every corner of India.
The coming elections will have to
be fought as a powerful people's
movement to defeat the BJP. The
battle has only begun. We shall fight!
We shall win! n

Maharashtra Exposes the Farce of
Modi’s Anti-Corruption Diatribes
E
xactly a year after engineering
defections in the Shiv Sena,
the Modi-Shah regime
has now targeted the Nationalist
Congress Party. Ajit Pawar has
once again been sworn in as Deputy
Chief Minister in Maharashtra.
What made this Sunday coup
especially sensational was that
it happened within seventy-two
hours of PM Modi’s ‘guarantee’
speech in Madhya Pradesh where
he had melodramatically announced
that if the opposition guaranteed
corruption, Modi stood for guarantee
of action against the corrupt. In that
speech he had specifically accused
the NCP of scams worth at least
rupees 70,000 crore. Of the nine
ministers now sworn in to the
Maharashtra cabinet from the Ajit
Pawar camp at least three have been
on the ED radar for years together.
Maharashtra has thus once again
exposed the utterly farcical nature
of Modi’s anti-corruption rhetoric.
The meaning of the Modi ‘guarantee’
of action against the corrupt has now
become crystal clear for the public
– it is a guarantee that politicians
will face persecution and vendetta
if they remained in the opposition
and will enjoy impunity and power
if they joined the BJP camp. When
Modi says that no corrupt politician
would be spared, it actually means
that his government would try
and coerce all of them to join the
BJP which is the ultimate washing
machine for people accused of
all kinds of crimes from financial
irregularities to sexual harassment
and rape to hate crimes of every
kind. From Himanta Biswa Sharma
in Assam and Subhendu Adhikari in
West Bengal to now Ajit Pawar and
Chhagan Bhujbal in Maharashtra,
the list of the rehabilitated scam
accused in the BJP camp is getting
lengthier by the day.
Behind Modi’s verbal aggression
describing the opposition as a gang
of corrupt dynasts, there is clearly
a palpable fear that the growing
electoral understanding among
various opposition parties would
galvanise the people and channelize
their anger towards the Modi regime
into a decisive defeat of the BJP in the
forthcoming elections. Even without
any opposition unity, the Congress
has managed to defeat the BJP quite
emphatically in Himachal Pradesh and
Karnataka. An upbeat Congress now
appears to be clearly on a comeback
trail in the next round of Assembly
elections in Madhya Pradesh and
Telangana while retaining power in
Chhattisgarh and possibly also in
Rajasthan. As India’s second biggest
electoral state supplying as many as 48
MPs, the importance of Maharashtra
to the BJP can therefore hardly be
overemphasised.
The BJP is very much aware of
the underlying instability of the
Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis
government (aptly described as the
ED government) with the sword
of disqualification hanging over
the heads of Eknath Shinde and his
colleagues as the Supreme Court
constitution bench revisits the
Maharashtra crisis in the coming
days. In the immediate context,
the inclusion of the defecting NCP
legislators is expected to compensate
for any numerical deficit caused by the
possible disqualification of Shinde
and his colleagues. But it is now clear
that Ajit Pawar still does not have the
requisite numbers and the possibility
of some defecting members returning
to the Sharad Pawar camp is only
growing with Sharad Pawar going
back to the people to rebuild the party.
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 11
COMMENTARY
Meanwhile, the NCP has also appealed
for disqualification of Ajit Pawar and
the other MLAs who have joined the
Shinde cabinet and expelled the rebel
MPs. The battle has thus only begun
and the situation remains unsettled
even in the short run.
Across India, the Modi government
is identified with the ‘Gujarat
model’. Even though the impression
of domination of Gujarat is sought
to be mitigated by including Yogi
Adityanath in the Modi-Shah bracket
and getting Narendra Modi to
represent Varanasi in the Lok Sabha,
the unprecedented concentration of
power and wealth in the hands of four
Gujaratis is not lost on anyone. The
issue of federalism thus resonates
strongly today not just in Kashmir
which has been stripped of its
constitutional rights or in Delhi where
the elected state government is denied
its constitutional powers through an
invasive executive ordinance or in
states marked by a distinct linguistic
and cultural identity like Tamil Nadu
and other southern states, but right
in Maharashtra, the heartland of
Indian capitalism. Coupled with the
increasing transfer or diversion of
projects, offices and institutional
resources from Maharashtra to
Gujarat, the political attacks on
the Shiv Sena and NCP, two parties
with strong Maharashtra-centric
regional identities can only make
Maharashtra feel more uneasy under
the domination of the Gujarat model
and make restoration of the federal
balance a more pressing concern in
Maharashtra politics.
The rise of the federal agenda against
the backdrop of the widening fault-
line between Gujarat and Maharashtra
was the underlying factor behind
the eventual rupture between the
Shiv Sena and the BJP, two parties
 COMMENTARY
that shared the closest ideological
intimacy during the rise of Hindutva
in the last three decades. If in spite
of the underlying Hindutva bond,
the alliance between the Shiv Sena
and the BJP could not survive the
growing domination of the Gujarat
model, the NCP has never really
been ideologically aligned with the
BJP except perhaps on economic and
foreign policy matters. The threat of
persecution and the allurements of
power have of course pushed the
majority of Shiv Sena and now NCP
Modi's US State Visit Has Revealed the True Colours
of His Regime before the Whole World
A
head of the 2024 Lok Sabha
elections, Narendra Modi is
once again banking on his
so-called global image to shore up
his fast declining local stocks. Even
as Manipur has been burning since
early May with more than 100 lives
lost, more than 200 churches burnt
and more than 50,000 displaced
people struggling to survive in
relief camps, the PM left the crisis-
ridden state in the lurch and flew to
America on a state visit. This was his
sixth US visit in nine years. And the
Biden Administration has taken full
advantage of the Modi government's
desperate craving for a US state visit
ahead of the elections to tighten the
American strategic grip around India.
Leaving aside the optics and self-
congratulatory propaganda of the
Modi government and Godi Media, we
should focus on the Biden-Modi joint
statement to assess the real content
of the visit. The 58-paragraph-long
statement touches almost all subjects
under the sun, but the focus clearly
is on deepening and broadening
defence ties which can only mean
greater strategic dependence of India
on the US and consequent limiting
of India's strategic autonomy. India
has already been drawn into alliances
12 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
legislators too to the BJP fold, but
the by-election and APMC election
results and the ground level support
for Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena
and Sharad Pawar’s NCP clearly
indicate the isolation of the Shiv
Sena and NCP MLAs who have
surrendered to the BJP from their
respective mass bases.
The Modi government now
desperately relies on communal
polarisation, political coercion
and brutal suppression of dissent
like the Quad (comprising USA,
Australia, Japan and India) and I2U2
(Israel, India, USA, UAE) primarily to
serve the US policy of containment
and encirclement of China and
consolidation of the US-Israel nexus.
The joint statement has all the
imprints of deeper strategic inroads
made by the US in India's space and
technology sectors and the domain
of defence. While the US will now
have greater access to the Indian
Navy and naval resources, India has
been lured into buying 31 hugely
overpriced Predator drones costing
$3.1 billion, a deal that has all the
trappings of another Rafael scam.
There are of course some proposals
of collaboration in the manufacturing
sector as in the MoU signed between
General Electric and Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited regarding
production of F-414 jet engines or
the MoU regarding the setting up
of a semiconductor assembling
and testing facility in Gujarat. The
investment amount will however
have to be borne mostly by India
and only time will tell if India really
benefits from any significant transfer
of technology.
India's increasingly US-centric
foreign policy has not just prohibitive
to hold on to power in the face
of its growing unpopularity. The
disconnect between the concerns
of the people on the ground and
the power-drunk arrogance of the
regime is now all too glaring from
Maharashtra to Manipur. Let the
opposition not be deterred by the
unscrupulous power games of the
regime and draw new strength
and energy by connecting with the
people. Modi’s Maharashtra gamble
has every potential to boomerang
and hasten his downfall. n
financial costs but more importantly
adverse diplomatic and political
implications. In India's own national
interest, India needs peace in the
region and cordial relations with all
neighbours. India's border dispute
with China demands diplomatic
resolution, but if India becomes a
close ally in pursuing the US strategy
of containment and encirclement of
China that would only broaden and
deepen India's antagonism with
China. The more India gets drawn
into the US-Israel camp, the more
it gets alienated from not just all
immediate neighbours but also the
Gulf countries making it actually
easier for China to expand its sphere
of influence. The Akhand Bharat map
in the new Parliament building has
already made India's neighbours
including Nepal apprehensive
about India's perceived expansionist
territorial ambitions.
For considerable sections of
American media and public opinion
including many in the Indian diaspora
or the Indian-American community,
the Modi visit meant an occasion to
share their concern about the crisis
of India's democracy and question
the persecution faced by dissenters,
the increased violence, insecurity

and discrimination affecting India's
religious minorities and the alarming
erosion of media freedom, civil
liberties and human rights in Modi's
India. Seventy-five US lawmakers
wrote to President Biden expressing
their concern, several boycotted
Modi's address, and hundreds
protested on the streets of America.
Former President Obama too publicly
raised these concerns while Modi was
asked in his White House joint Press
Conference what his government
planned to do to remedy the situation.
Modi gave a tautological answer
Invoking India's Constitution to rule
out any possibility of discrimination
and human rights violation simply
because India is a constitutionality
proclaimed democratic republic.
But the angry reaction to Obama's
comment and the press conference
question from the BJP troll army as
well as senior BJP leaders has once
again given away the truth!
Sabrina Siddiqui, the Wall Street
Journal reporter who asked the
question about the decline of
democracy in India is being trolled as
a Pakistani agent. The White House
and international journalists have
condemned this harassment of Ms
Siddiqui. Even Barack Obama is being
Debunk the False Narrative of
Modi's 'Foreign Policy Success'
L
iberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Galvanised by this clarion
call of democracy, the people
of France had risen in triumphant
revolt in 1789 against the hated
citadel of monarchical repression.
The storming of the Parisian Bastille
prison heralded the historic advent
of the modern era of democratic
republics. One hundred and
sixty years later it was this spirit
of freedom that became the
underpinning of the Constitution
trolled by BJP leaders as ‘Hussein
Obama’, projecting him as a Muslim
and therefore biased against India.
Shamefully, Assam Chief Minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma retorted to
a journalist on Twitter that Assam
Police will first deal with the Hussein
Obamas in India before bothering
about the American Obama! Finance
Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are
also busy rubbishing Obama for the
bombing of Muslim countries during
his Presidency, coolly ignoring the
fact that the Modi government has
been a vocal supporter of US foreign
policy vis-a-vis Muslim countries!
Modi's address to the joint session of
US Congress also merits attention -
though not for his mistaken reading
of the teleprompter text that made
him talk about investigating in the girl
child and laying of thousands of miles
of political fibre! It is the text and not
the PM's delivery which should attract
our attention. Talking about the 75th
anniversary of India's independence
Modi once again talked about one
thousand years of foreign rule. It is
this rejection of one thousand years
of Indian history and heritage that lies
at the root of the toxic narrative of
Hindu supremacist majoritarianism,
of republican India when political
power was wrested from the control
of British colonialism into Indian
hands. In a supreme irony of history,
today even as that constitution
is being trampled underfoot
by the tyrannical Modi regime,
the destroyer in chief of Indian
democracy figured as the guest of
honour in the French celebration
of Bastille Day this year. The well-
known French newspaper Le Monde
termed this irony in its editorial
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 13
COMMENTARY
projects Indian Muslims as invaders
and the 'internal enemy' and provides
the ideological justification for
the relentless campaign of hate
and violence against the Muslim
community which now threatens to
assume genocidal proportions with
calls for boycott and expulsion of
Muslims from one state after another.
During the Trump Presidency,
Modi had turned his US visit into a
campaign platform for Trump with
his loud exhortation of 'Abki Baar
Trump Sarkar'! The American voters,
including many of Modi's audience
in the Indian diaspora, were wise
enough not to be misled by Modi's
cheerleading clamour for a second
term for Trump. While obliging
Modi with a pre-poll state visit and
its attendant publicity, the Biden
Administration has however made
sure that the true character of the
Modi regime got revealed before the
whole world. Just as the American
voters turned down the Modi clamour
for a renewed Trump victory, let's
hope the Indian electors also display
the maturity to see through the truth
of Modi's claims to 'global leadership'
and reject him for inflicting on India
the unmitigated disaster that his
regime has been. n
comment a victory of realpolitik.
This realpolitik reflects the strategic
convergence of interests of the
powers that be in today's France and
India. Modi's current visit to France,
his fourth since Emmanuel Macron
came to power in 2017 and seventh
since his own victory in 2014, marked
twenty-five years of strategic
partnership between France and
India. And the deepening of strategic
ties means growing defence
purchases by India from France.
 COMMENTARY
Between 2018 and 2022 France has
been India's second largest arms
supplier, accounting for 29 percent
of India's total arms imports. The
Bastille Day parade witnessed joint
participation of French and Indian
troops along with the controversial
Rafale jets acquired by India from
France. The state-owned television
network France 24 rightly observed
"Arms, not democratic values, on
parade as Macron hosts India's Modi
on Bastille Day".
Even as controversy continues to
haunt Modi's 2015 Rafale purchase
deal - while the investigation has
been hushed up in India following
a 'sealed cover' communication
between the Modi government and
the Supreme Court, irregularities
of the deal are still being probed
and exposed in France - Modi's
current visit saw a fresh purchase
announcement by India. In two
major deals costing reportedly about
$10 billion, India will purchase 26
additional Rafale jets for the Indian
Navy as well as three Scorpene class
submarines. These big defence
contracts serve as the bedrock of
India's much-trumpeted strategic
partnerships, whether with the
US, Israel and now increasingly
France. Only the other day we saw
the Modi government seal a hugely
overpriced Predator drone deal with
the US during the PM's state visit to
the US in June.
Like his US visit, PM Modi's visit
to France has also been marked by
strong international indictment of
the Modi government's systematic
assault on democracy in India. The
growing insecurity of religious
minorities, especially Muslims and
Christians, suppression of dissent
and press freedom, the reign of
hate and fear and the impunity
with which private militias are
spreading terror and violence
and BJP leaders are getting away
with a whole range of crimes are
rightly being questioned by global
14 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
India's international
stature is directly
related to the state
of India's internal
democracy, economic
development and
social fabric. A
government that
continues to inflict
domestic disasters
on all fronts is bound
to be a liability in the
international arena
too.
public opinion and well-wishers
of Indian democracy. Several
public intellectuals and eminent
voices of France asked Macron to
"encourage Prime Minister Modi
to end repression of the civil
society, assure media freedom and
protect religious liberty". Clearly,
Obama's comments on CNN and the
question addressed to PM Modi by
the WSJ journalist Sabina Siddiqui
continued to resonate in France.
In the US several senators had
registered their protest by
boycotting Modi's address to the
joint US Congress. Coinciding
with Modi's France visit, the
705-member European Parliament
actually discussed and adopted a
resolution moved by five factions
covering around 80% of lawmakers.
The resolution expressed serious
concern about the ongoing violence
in Manipur which has resulted
in large-scale deaths, massive
displacement and destruction
of houses and places of worship,
especially churches, on an alarming
scale. The Modi government's stock
response to this indictment has
been the same as we witnessed in the
wake of the BBC video and Obama's
comments and US media questions,
calling it 'politically motivated
interference in India's internal
affairs'. Ironically, following the
assault on the constitutional
rights of Jammu and Kashmir,
the same Modi government had
hosted a dubious visit by a small
group of favourable European MPs
even as India's own opposition
MPs and political leaders were
being prevented from visiting the
beleaguered state.
Ahead of the coming Lok Sabha
elections, the BJP is trying hard
to counter the growing public
disillusionment and anger over
the Modi government's dismal
track record of all-round failure
and betrayal by conjuring a false
impression of India's growing
global stature under Modi's Prime
Ministership. The hype over
Modi's Australia, US and France
visits and the G20 Presidency will
all be used to build up this fake
narrative. As the world's most
populous country with rich natural
resources, enormous manpower
and an extensive market, India
definitely has many advantages and
a major role to play in the present
international situation. But far
from leveraging these advantages
to develop India into a stronger
democracy and people-centred
economy with a powerful voice for
global justice, peace and planetary
survival, the Modi government is
actually pushing India into a state
of strategic dependence on the US
and its western allies and growing
isolation from and antagonism
with all its immediate neighbours.
Moreover, India's international
stature is directly related to the
state of India's internal democracy,
economic development and social
fabric. A government that continues
to inflict domestic disasters on all
fronts is bound to be a liability in the
international arena too. n

NRF, a Death Knell for Research in India
\ LEKHA ADAVI
I
ndia is ranked among the bottom 30% among 179
countries in the world ‘academic freedom’ index
and has been called out for weakening university
autonomy through centralization, bureaucratization and
politicization of research. The recent raids on independent
research organisations like Amnesty, Oxfam and Centre
for Policy Research, comes to show how the BJP-led
Union government is pushing knowledge generation in
India into complete silence. It is in this context that the
Union Cabinet has announced its approval to set up the
National Research Foundation (NRF) – a direct outcome
of the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP).
The NRF, an apex body for research, being setup to
provide for “high-level strategic direction” to scientific
research in the country, will fund and facilitate research
in universities and colleges, at both the central and state
levels, and will coordinate with funding agencies and
academies in science, engineering and other streams.
The aim is to develop a culture of research, especially
in the fields of population dynamics and management,
digital marketplace, climate change, biotechnology
and others, which means that research will be led by
market-based needs and will in no way encourage critical
scientific research, increase scientific temperament or
take scientific research to the masses. There is no doubt
that R&D sector in India requires to be strengthened.
However, what the NRF envisions is a cause for worry.
Scientific research and development was earlier
conducted by bodies like Science and Engineering
Research Board (SERB), which has now been subsumed
by the NRF, along with Department of Science and
Technology, Department of Atomic Energy, Department
of Bio-Technology, Indian Council of Agriculture
Research, Indian Council of Medical Research, Indian
Council of Historical Research, and University Grants
Commission, among others. While the funding came
from the Union government, the research conducted
were independent and free from interference of the
ruling regime. This was highlighted in 2022 when the
Wildlife Institute of India was asked to have its reports
and publications pre-approved by the Union Ministry
for Environment .
Recently, the Union government enlisted the help of the
Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee, a
CSIR facility, to ensure the “sun’s rays will fall on Ramlala’s
head in Ram Mandir on Ram Navami 2024” . CBRI had
also roped in researchers from the Indian Institute
of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, and the Inter-University
POLICY WATCH
Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune for this
“research”. National Institute of Advanced Studies,
Bengaluru has been commissioned by the Ministry of
Culture to fund a project to establish the genetic history
and trace the purity of races in India . When science
institutions are being used to serve the agenda of the
Sangh Parivar, we see that the NRF being setup will be
run by a Governing Board whose ex-officio President
will be the Prime Minister, whereas the ex-officio vice-
presidents will be the Union Ministers for Science &
Technology and Education, and NRF’s functioning
will be governed by an Executive Council with its chair
being the Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of
India. This is a direct assault on the independence and
autonomy of research that will be conducted in India.
About Rs. 50,000 crores has been allocated to setup this
apex research body, with only Rs. 14,000 crore being
provided for by the Union Government. Out of this, Rs.
4,000 crore will be used from the SERB as it is being
subsumed by the NRF. The remaining Rs. 36,000 crores
will be through contingent funding from private sector,
including philanthropic initiatives, and such funding is
in the realm of the unknown.
Even as the NRF aims to provide a reliable base of “merit-
based”, but equitable peer-reviewed research funding, a
study on ‘Brahmins as scientists and science as Brahmins’
calling: Caste in an Indian scientific research institute’
showed how science has been dominated by Brahmin and
upper caste scientists, who perceive to be the “natural
inheritors” of scientific practice . In contrast, we see how
despite social justice measures being adopted in eminent
science institutes, caste discrimination and mental
harassment has led to death by suicides of students who
are pursuing PhD. The rate of death by suicides among
students has increased to 35 deaths per day!
Academic freedom is being proactively curbed where
recently we saw that a talk on ‘UAPA, prisons and the
Indian criminal-justice system’ with anti-CAA activists
Natasha Narwal and Devangna Kalita, organized by
students and academicians was cancelled by the Indian
Institute of Science, Bengaluru. When the event took
place braving all odds and a signature campaign was
undertaken questioning the move of the premier science
institute, showcause notices were sent to two professors
from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research,
Mohali for endorsing the open letter.
Strengthening of public universities is the need of the
hour, and to the contrary, what we find is an active effort
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 15
 POLICY WATCH

to crackdown on progressive intellectuals and student
politics, with dissent being considered “anti-national”
and students like Devangna, Natasha, Umar Khalid,
Gulfisha, etc., and professors like Anand Teltumbde,
Saibaba, Hany Babu, being incarcerated by the State.
On the other hand, saffronisation of education through
textbook revisions, discouraging analytical thinking
through introduction of multiple-choice questions,
etc., will ensure the death of critical thinking in early
education. The implementation of NEP has drawn large
scale criticism from educationists and academicians,
and the BJP-led governments continue to bulldoze the
policy into implementation. With the NRF being the
brainchild of the NEP, the quality of research and the
kind of research that will be generated in the days to
come, will destroy what remains of the research sector.
With academic spaces shrinking, discrimination being
rampant, research becoming unaffordable, blatant
privatization and corporatization of education sector,
coupled with the active interference of the ruling regime
to propagate their ideology through saffronisation of
education and research, the NRF rings a death knell to
research in India. n

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill

\ MAITREYI

T
he Union Government has
recently stated that a draft
of the Data protection Bill
would be tabled in the monsoon
session of Parliament.
Our personal data has become a
commodity, used by businesses
worldwide to shape our behaviour
and, on the other hand, for the
government, the same data is
used a tool to expand its control
and regulation over citizens. A
proposed bill on Data protection
would be required to act against
such possibilities. That, however,
is not the case.
In August, 2017 a nine-judge
bench of the Supreme Court,
in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs
Union of India, unanimously
affirmed that the right to privacy
is a fundamental right under the
Indian Constitution. Earlier in
2017, the Union Government had
constituted a Committee under
the Chairmanship of Justice B.N.
Srikrishna to study issues relating to
data protection and to suggest a draft
data protection bill. The Committee
gave its Report in 2018 along with
a Draft Bill. Thereafter, a Bill with
the stated objection for protection
of data was first introduced in 2019
and referred to a Joint Parliamentary
Committee. After much criticism,
the bill was withdrawn in August,
2022, and in November, 2022, the
Digital Personal Data Protection
Bill 2022 was introduced.
As of now, the most recent draft
of the Bill approved by the Union
remains undisclosed, leaving us to
base our analysis on the contents
of the November 2022 version. The
provisions of this Bill suggest that
the intent of the Bill is not on data
and privacy protection. Instead, it
serves as a means to grant a seal of
approval for the perpetuation of
a surveillance state, and become
a mechanism to control citizens
rather than protect data.
Perpetuation of a
surveillance state and
the commodification of
data through Exemptions
Section 18(2) of the Bill grants
overarching powers to the Union
Government to exempt any
instrumentality of state from the
application of the provisions of
the Bill for vague and over broad
reasons that include “sovereignty
and integrity of India, security of the
State, friendly relations with foreign
States, maintenance of public order
or preventing incitement to any
cognizable offence relating to any
of these”.
Section 18(4), exempts
instrumentalities of state from the
requirement of erasing personal data
after its purpose has been fulfilled.
Section 8(9) empowers the Union
government to establish "fair and
reasonable" reasons for which
personal data can be used without
explicit consent, and consent is
deemed. This gives the government
undue and overreaching influence,
which they can use to their advantage,
putting citizens' personal data in the
government's hands without their
permission.
These provisions permits the
government to collect data about
citizens, retain such data and create
profiles for surveillance, essentially,
without any restriction. Under
these circumstances, the ’Right to
Privacy’ confirmed by the Supreme
Court in 2017 loses all meaning and
the law essentially legitimizes the
establishment of a surveillance state.
In regard to private entities,
Section 18(3) empowers the Union
Government to exempt private
entities, “having regard to the

16 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)


volume and nature of personal data
processed” from various provisions
of the law - including the duty to issue
a notice before collecting data, the
duty to not to retain data after the
purpose for which it was collected
is completed and the duty to provide
information as to the purposes and
uses of the collected data. Without
clear guidelines in regard to the
basis for such exemptions, one can
only imagine the manner in which
Big Tech would weaponize these
provisions of the law
Erasing Consent
in the name of
“Deemed Consent”
The Bill mandates that personal
data may be processed for the lawful
purpose for which an individual has
given explicit consent. However,
Section 8 introduces situations
where consent is "deemed" to have
been given – meaning that consent
is presumed even if it has not been
expressly provided in reality.
Consent is ‘deemed’ to have been
given when such use is considered
to be in ‘Public Interest’. And, what
are the grounds for considering
something to be of ‘Public interest’?
Among others - Prevention and
detection of fraud; mergers
& acquisitions; network and
information security; Credit Scores;
operation of search engines for
processing of publicly available
personal data; processing of
publicly available personal data; and
recovery of debt. The indicative list
itself shows the overbroad use of the
term public interest – in what way,
for instance, can recovery of debt
and credit scoring, which requires
the collection of private and
sensitive financial data for private
purposes even be understood as
public interest and be provided
to others without the explicit
permission of the individual in each
and every such query.
Similarly, Section 8 provides for
deemed consent for the purposes
of employment, which has to be
viewed as a further intensification
of the “dictatorship of the
private employer”. The 2019 Bill
treated employment as a basis
for processing only non-sensitive
personal data - sensitive details
like sexual orientation, sex life,
transgender status, caste, religious
affiliation etc. were covered under
‘sensitive personal data’.
A weak enforcement
system
The Bill requires the Union
Government to set up the
Data Protection Board of India
responsible for addressing non-
compliances, imposing penalties
and directing remedial actions in
cases of data breach.
Two key distinctions between the
2018 Draft proposed by the Justice
Srikrishna Committee and the 2022
Bill highlight concerns about the
weakened nature and independence
of the Board.
Under the 2018 bill the Selection
Committee of the Board included
the Chief Justice of India or a
Supreme Court Judge - Such judicial
presence has been omitted in the
2022 Bill and the selection process
of the Board is now to be determined
by the Government.
Secondly, the 2018 Bill explicitly
safeguarded the salaries and
allowances of the chairperson and
members of the DPAI throughout
their tenure, ensuring financial
security that would support the
independence of the institution.
However, the 2022 bill lacks such
guarantees, leaving the matter of
financial security at the discretion of
the Union Government. It would be
important to recall a similar change
made in the RTI (Amendment) Act,
2019.
These provisions raise crucial
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 17
POLICY WATCH
concerns about the independence
of the Board, that is tasked with
the responsibility of penalizing
and acting upon non-compliances
of the law.
Add to this, the penalty introduced
in the Bill of Rs. 10,000/- for
registering a “false or frivolous
grievance” - this would deter the
free exercise of rights for the fear
of facing penalties.
Sacrificing Privacy for
Global Business and
State Surveillance
In the 2017 Right to Privacy
judgment, Justice Chandrachud
writes “Dignity cannot exist without
privacy. Both reside within the
inalienable values of life, liberty and
freedom which the Constitution has
recognized. Privacy is the ultimate
expression of the sanctity of the
individual. It is a constitutional
value which straddles across the
spectrum of fundamental rights and
protects for the individual a zone of
choice and self-determination.”
The Prime Minister, Narendra
Modi, while speaking about the Bill
only said that it would improve the
country’s global standing - He chose
to not speak of the people’s right to
privacy that was to be the focus of
the Bill.
This is only reflective of what the
2022 Bill has to offer. In the name
of data protection, it effectively
sanctions state surveillance and
allows for personnel data to be
commodified and used by business.
The Bill takes us down a dangerous
road of sanctioning the violation
of the right to privacy and grants
excessive power to the State,
rendering the right to privacy
meaningless, encroaching upon
the very essence of life, liberty and
freedom itself. n
 POLICY WATCH
New Wheat Storage Plan
A Ploy to Clandestinely Bring Back
the Repealed Farm Laws
O
n June 1st, the Union
government announced
the “world’s largest grain
storage scheme in the cooperative
sector”, which is to be implemented
through an empowered Inter-
Ministerial Committee with an outlay
of Rupees One lakh crores. This will
be a project piloted by the Ministry
of Cooperation headed by Amit Shah,
along with the Ministry of Agriculture
and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of
Food Processing Industries and
Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food
and Public Distribution. This plan is
to be brought into shape by a National
Coordination Committee through
the already existing and ‘viable’
Primary Agricultural Credit Societies
(PACS). About Rs. 1 lakh crore will be
taken away from the ‘available outlays
provided’ under eight identified
schemes in many ministries for this
purpose, without any separate funds
being allotted.
PACS has not been assigned the job
of grain storage now, but they will
function in multiple roles to serve
as fair price shops, buy and rent
agricultural implements to farmers,
food processing of farmers’ produce,
and even to set up mechanisms for
quality control of farm produce.
In a separate communique of the
government, it has been said that
selected PACS will also be allowed to
set up the much hyped ‘Jan Aushadhi
Kendra’ to sell generic medicines.
Agricultural credit societies are
functional at village-level through
an old cooperative system with the
contribution of member farmers and
producers themselves, along with the
short term credit made available by
a network of various Gramin Banks
under a certain policy framework
regulated by NABARD and other
18 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
institutions. So far, these PACS
are supposed to cater to farmers’
immediate needs during crop seasons.
Their primary mode of functioning is
cooperation, which practically cannot
create enough funds for investments
and diversification of their role
in, more and purely, commercial
activities. Such funds then will have
to come from some outside source
which could be through government
subsidy or loans from banks or private
investment. As per the plan, each
PACS will have a modular facility
for the above mentioned jobs of
storage, processing and marketing
with an estimated construction cost
at Rs. 2.25 crores, out of which, the
government will provide a subsidy of
Rs. 51 lakh and the rest will be margin
money or loan. The storage space will
be rented out to the FCI or private
agencies. With such an arrangement,
it has not been made clear as to how
an envisaged annual earning of Rs. 45
lakhs to the concerned PACS will be
feasible.
Till 2000, the share of rural credit
cooperatives in disbursing rural
credit used to be 54% and they
had contributed more than 50%
in providing short-term credit
for farmers’ input costs. But, for
obvious policy reasons, the actual
‘co-operative’ movement got
weakened during severe agrarian
crisis under neoliberal regime and
the credit cooperatives’ share in
rural credit dropped at 12.26% by
2019. A relatively robust rural credit
mechanism and a policy framework
that included agriculture subsidies
and various schemes has now been
withdrawn to comply with WTO
dictates. The new scheme of things
being presented mainly relies on
the same dictum of market that
was voiced by the BJP and other
proponents of the three farm laws
which the Modi government was
forced to withdraw under pressure
of the historic farmers’ movement.
Now the PACS is no longer a platform
for improving the rural credit system.
Instead, they have been transformed
into multi-service centres which are
to be connected electronically at the
national-level into a single platform
for marketing agricultural produce
and services in an open market. The
government has already started
a project to bring all PACS on a
common platform with a Common
Accounting System for their business
by computerising them. The Farmers
(Empowerment And Protection)
Agreement On Price Assurance And
Farm Services Bill, 2020, meant to

bring in contract farming, was passed
by the Modi Government in 2020 and
repealed later in 2021 under pressure
of the farmers’ movement. This was to
realise the corporate India’s dream of
‘opening up the market for the Indian
farmer’.
While addressing PACS
representatives in August 2020,
Narendra Modi had said, “Why can’t
a farmer sell his crop like a soap-
maker can sell his soaps wherever
he wants? Why is there no concept
of ‘one nation, one market’ for the
farmer?”. That Contract Farming
Act had the provision of introducing
third parties, other than farmers
and the government, in the name of
‘farm service provider’ or ‘qualified
assayer’ or ‘aggregator’. The ‘Farmers’
Produce Trade and Commerce
(Promotion and Facilitation) Act,
2020,’ Act passed, and repealed later,
was to replace APMCs and system of
minimum support prices for the crops
by introducing ‘farmer producer
organisation’ and ‘co-operative
society’ as a platform to deal with the
traders in an open market. These same
provisions, widely opposed by the
farmers of the country, are brought
in again in the name of making PACS
multi-modal and as multiple service
provider agencies, but without any
Tackling Alcoholism as
A Health Disorder and a Wider Societal Issue
A
lcohol prohibition is a
subject of intense debate
and public concern in the
country. Some states like Haryana
and Andhra Pradesh introduced
prohibition only to lift the ban even
as Gujarat has had prohibition in
force for the past seven decades.
At present various levels of alcohol
prohibition operate in a handful of
states – in Gujarat, there is provision
assurances of procurement of crops
at MSP or any governmental finance
to make this scheme viable in favour
of common farmers.
As far as storage of food grain is
concerned, the existing capacity
of Food Corporation of India
(FCI) is sufficient in fulfilling the
requirements for National Food
Security Act, Public Distribution
System and also has a buffer stock
to keep the prices stable during lean
season or aggressive open market
situations. This is in spite of the fact
that the Modi government had, in
2015, recommended privatisation
of the FCI along with reduction in
coverage of PDS. A number of Adani
Agri-business companies were set up
whose grain silos will take the place of
FCI godowns. The FCI was deliberately
deprived of funds needed for its
modernisation and even maintenance
works. Moreover, this very crucial
public sector undertaking and an
important component in ensuring
food security for the nation was forced
into a heavy debt trap which it cannot
recover from on its own. This is how
the Modi government has cleared the
path for its crony corporates, and the
Inter-Ministerial Committee headed
by Amit Shah can make the way further
using PACS as the next platform for
\ CLIFTON D' ROZARIO
for special alcohol licences for
hospitality establishments as well as
individuals, in Lakshadweep serving
liquor is only permitted at the resort
on Bangram island, in Mizoram
the 2019 prohibition law permits
military personnel and those with
“medical needs” to consume alcohol,
while in Nagaland it is complete
prohibition. Bihar too has complete
prohibition since December 2015
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 19
POLICY WATCH
corporatisation of agriculture.
According to the recommendations of
the National Farmers’ Commission,
farmers are struggling for proper
remunerative prices, for legal
guarantee of MSP, for decreasing
the input costs, legislation for
sharecroppers to be recognised as
farmers, etc. But despite the retreat
on three pro-corporate farm laws, the
Modi regime continues to implement
the same through backdoors. The
Electricity (Amendment) Bill of
2020 was repealed, but now the
Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022
was placed before the Lok Sabha and
has been referred to the Parliamentary
Standing Committee.
India had enjoyed relative seed
sovereignty with public sector
firms dominating the seed sector.
The subsidised fertilisers were in
affordable limits, and the agriculture
extension services lent a big hand to
farmers in need. The PACS in the
new avatar is said to be providing the
same services under a so-called open
market ecosystem which was earlier
there as state’s support system. This
will further endanger the already
crisis-ridden agriculture, leaving
peasantry at the mercy of companies
whose only motive is to make more
profits. n
when the government introduced
its New Excise Policy. Towards this
end, the law regulating liquor sale
and consumption was amended and
complete prohibition was declared
within the State of Bihar from April
2016 onwards. The Bihar Prohibition
and Excise Act, 2016 prohibits the
sale, purchase, or possession of liquor
in any form (including Indian-made
foreign and country-made liquor)
 POLICY WATCH
and mandates stringent penalties
for violators.
Incidentally, the various debates and
concerns – for and against prohibition
– formed one of the prominent
debates at the time of framing of
the Constitution in the Constituent
Assembly.
Article 47, one of the Directive
Principles of State Policy, in addition
to securing adequate nutrition, the
standard of living and improvement
of public health as among its primary
duties, mandates that the “State shall
endeavour to bring about prohibition
of the consumption except for
medicinal purposes of intoxicating
drinks and of drugs which are injurious
to health”. It is interesting to trace the
debates in the Constituent Assembly
that led to the adoption of prohibition
of “intoxicating drinks”, especially
since this did not form a part of the
Draft Article in the initial instance.
In November 1948, there
effectively prevailed a consensus
in the Constituent Assembly on
the question of introduction of
prohibition of alcohol. The Gandhian
school considered prohibition, along
with khadi, as being fundamental to
Gandhi’s politics. Unsurprisingly
there were only two detractors to
this proposal - BH Khardekar and
Jaipal Singh. Khardekar countered
the arguments presented by the
prohibitionists, whether economic
or moral, on the basis of experience
of other countries and urged to learn
from the mistakes of others. He
drew a distinction between drinkers
and drunkards and emphasised the
need to use revenues from the sale
of liquor to promote education and
social upliftment of the poor and
the deprived and find other effective
ways of dealing with the problem of
alcoholism. Jaipal Singh pointed out
how prohibition would go against
the customs and rights of Adivasi
communities.
At the end of a long debate it was
20 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
Treating alcoholism as
an issue of individual
morality and a law
and order problem,
rather than as a
health disorder and a
wider societal issue, is
contributing to making
the problem worse,
rather than better
Ambedkar turn to respond. While
concluding that the proposal seemed
acceptable to the House, he addressed
two specific objections that were
raised on the issue of prohibition. In
response to Khardekar, Ambedkar
clarified that prohibition was to be
made part of the Directive Principles
of State Policy and as such there
would be "no compulsion on the
State to act on this principle” and
“whether to act on this principle and
when to do so are left to the State and
to public opinion”. Addressing Jaipal
Singh, he stated that ample provisions
were being made for safeguarding the
position of Adivasis with regard to the
question of prohibition.
Thereafter the amendment was
put to vote and the proposal to
include prohibition of consumption
of intoxicating drinks, except for
medicinal purposes was adopted.
Mahavir Tyagi’s proposal for full
prohibition without any exception
for medicinal purposes was rejected.
Sardar Bhopinder Singh’s proposal to
insert “tobacco” in the prohibition
clause was also rejected.
The Constituent Assembly debates
reveal that the considerations
around alcohol probation revolved
primarily around moral, religious and
economic aspects. The moral, as the
Constituent Assembly debates reveal,
is not as simple as it is made out to be
with the questions of differing moral
mores, sensibilities and individual
liberty remaining unresolved. The
economic, on the other hand, has
two aspects – firstly, the loss of excise
revenue generation, and secondly, the
impact on the household finances of
the poor.
The Bihar experience has all but
confirmed the general experience
around prohibition, and the caution
sounded by Khardekar in the
Constituent Assembly, that when
people are deprived of drink by law,
they will resort to “illicit distillation”,
“drinking poisonous stuff ” or use
“bribery and corruption”. In fact,
Bihar has witnessed a spate of deaths
due to consumption of hooch, a form
of illicit liquor. Most recently in
December 2022 more than 80 persons
in Saran district, 5 persons in Siwan
district and two people in Begusarai
district have died in hooch tragedies.
Indeed, consumption of illicit liquor
and drugs has spiked in Bihar over the
last 6 years, following its complete
prohibition in the State. A large share
of the blame for this increase can be
attributed to the manner in which
liquor has come to be prohibited in
the State. While alcoholism is a social
menace, and one that has an adverse
impact on society, particularly on
women who are abused by their
alcoholic husbands, treating liquor
as a law and order problem rather
than a social problem has only driven
the practice underground and has
allowed illegal practices including
manufacture and sale of spurious
liquor, under the patronage of
politicians and the administration,
to fester.
Apart from a rise of liquor mafia and
hooch deaths, Bihar is also seeing an
excessive rise in bail cases being filed
under the prohibition law, leaving
courts clogged, and several hundreds
of people languishing in jail. These
prisoners are not liquor mafia dons
or other powerful persons but poor
people from marginalised sections

including tribal and mahadalit
communities who have traditionally
been engaged in the liquor business,
in this way, the Bihar experience also
proves Khardekar right when he said
that despite prohibition there will be
a “number of people who go on still
indulging in drinks and go on filling
the innumerable jails”. 45,000 men
(of whom a handful may belong to
the liquor mafia but the majority are
amongst Bihar’s poorest and most
oppressed) languish in jails after being
arrested under this law. In July 2017, a
fast track court in Jehanabad handed
the first conviction under the anti-
liquor law, in which two extremely
poor daily wagers, Mastan Manjhi
and Painter Manjhi were sentenced
to five years rigorous imprisonment
and slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the
charge of having drunk toddy.
Here one must point out that the
liquor prohibition law suffers
from several fatal infirmities,
which have a direct consequence
on the poor against whom this law
is disproportionately used. The
Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act,
2016 when enacted faced a huge
outcry over its provisions which
imposed stringent punishments
including death, holding entire
families responsible for individual
consumption, and expulsion
of habitual offenders from the
district, and hence the Act came
to be amended in 2018, and now
again in 2022. The amended Act
continues to be a cause of enormous
concern however. Under the Act,
punishments range from mandatory
minimum sentences of 10 years, fines
towering up to 10 lakhs to sealing
and confiscation of property among
other broad brush and draconian
provisions. These punishment and
penalty provisions raise important
legal questions on proportionality.
The Supreme Court has dealt
extensively with the legal principle
of proportionality in several of its
cases. Any sentence that is imposed
must be proportionate to the harm
caused by the offence. While
determining sentencing under any
law, the prime consideration must
always be whether the response is
proportionate to the harm. It needs
to be shown that such high penalties
or punishments is the proportionate
way of addressing the problem of
alcoholism in the State; and there are
no other methods which are equally
efficacious to combat it. However,
with respect to this Act, these
factors have not been considered.
Prescribing 10 years for activities
like storing or transporting alcohol
is disproportionately excessive.
For comparison, under the NDPS
Act, which has a similar objective
to curb drug use, the punishment
for consumption has a maximum
sentence of 1 year. The NDPS Act also
has graded punishment depending
on the seriousness of the abuse. In
contrast, the Bihar prohibition Act,
has disproportionately excessive
punishments, which are liable to be
struck down by the Courts. The Act
also envisages a reversed burden of
proof for certain proceedings under
the Act. It is a cardinal principle
of criminal law that a person is
innocent until proven guilty. The
reverse onus clause in the Act with
no rhyme or justification for its
inclusion is irrational, unreasonable
and constitutionally invalid. As such
there is no doubt that the law is
draconian.
The draconian prohibition law
has been ushered in on the pretext
of alleviating the sufferings of
women and families of alcoholics.
But the reality is very different.
Mastan and Painter Manjhi, the
first convicts under the prohibition
law in Bihar, earned their livelihood
by plying thelas (cycle-carts). Now
their families are on the brink of
starvation and deep in debt. When
the police raided their home, their
wives told the police that they had
only been drinking toddy – which is
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 21
POLICY WATCH
exempted from punishment under
the prohibition law. But the police
and judicial system had no respect
for the testimony of the very women
in the name of whom the prohibition
law has been enacted. The legal fight
ahead for the family is going to be
very difficult.
It is acknowledged that, alcoholism
is a deep rooted problem. It has
wrecked families, created health
hazards and contributed extensively
to domestic abuse of women.
However, treating alcoholism as an
issue of individual morality and a law
and order problem, rather than as a
health disorder and a wider societal
issue, is contributing to making the
problem worse, rather than better.
We must also remember that the
right to privacy is inherent in Article
21, and every person has the right to
choose how to live, what to eat and
drink, what to wear, etc. so long as
it does not interfere with the rights
of others. Coercive laws that deprive
people of their right to life and
liberty, and have a disproportionate
impact on poor and marginalised
sections of people is not how a State
should tackle alcoholism. Rather the
State must look at other measure to
target alcoholism including setting
up de-addiction centres, expanding
public health services and provision
of counselling etc among others.
The State government must, for
now, withdraw all prosecutions
under the Bihar Prohibition and
Excise Act, 2016 and release all
persons imprisoned under the Act
with immediate effect. The State
government must consider other
effective and non-criminalising steps
to address the problematic issues
around alcoholism, particularly
gender violence, instead of solely
relying upon/pursuing with the
Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act,
2016. The same ought to be under
consideration in all states where
prohibition laws are in force. n
 POLICY WATCH

Destruction and Decimation

of Higher Education
\ N SAI BALAJI

T
he first term of Modi
government witnessed fund
cuts in the budget of the
University Grants’ Commission
(UGC), sciences and overall
higher education; decimation
of reservations; vilification and
harassment of students and teachers;
targeting of premier universities
through lies and slander; replacing
autonomous sexual harassment
bodies like the Gender Sensitization
Committee Against Sexual
Harassment (GSCASH) with puppet
bodies like the Internal Complaints
Committee (consisting of nominated
as opposes to elected members) in
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU),
fee hikes, criminalisation of student politics of hate that the Hindutva through increased fees and cost
politics and others. fascist ideology symbolises. of education. Similarly, the hard-
Recently we have seen how attained policies of social justice
The second term of Modi government
departments in Delhi University stand destroyed with NEP 2020 due
from 2019 till date represents a
and other universities were forced to its push for corporate takeover of
complete destruction of public
to close courses on caste, gender, higher education where policies of
funded education and institutions
and other forms of discriminations. reservation are not applicable. The
governing them into a centralised,
These are being done in the name of document does not even mention
corporatised and communalised
reform. However, the changes that reservations even once in the whole
model that stands against policies of
are suggested will end up entrenching text. The promotion of public-
inclusive, affordable, and accessible
the existing unequal structures that private-philanthropic education
education.
promote discrimination. model opens avenues for corporates
Syllabus Changes: Threat to start universities. If earlier
to Plural Education and Loan based Education policies promoted privatisation of
Model and death of education, NEP 2020 goes a further
Academic Freedom step in corporatising education
Social Justice
Efforts are being made to falsify and in institutionalizing privatized
history through deletion of chapters The public funded model now education as the new normal.
concerning the Mughal period, stands decimated with the National
Education Policy (NEP) unilaterally Institutional Murders to
Gujarat riots and democratic
movements. The government is trying imposed on students and teachers Institutional Exclusion
to untrain students in democracy and without any discussion in parliament. Darshan Solanki, a first year Dalit
constitutional ethos by removing The NEP seeks to put in place a loan- student hailing from Gujarat, who
relevant texts and related chapters. It based education model. Universities was studying in the Indian Institute
is also infusing propaganda by adding and institutes now need to raise of Technology (IIT) Bombay died
chapters on Savarkar, Golwakar and loans from banks through Higher by suicide on 12th February 2023.
other icons of Sangh Parivar who Education Funding Authority His family claimed Darshan faced
sided with the British colonial legacy, (HEFA) and students must repay caste discrimination within the
them by taking loans from banks campus and wanted an enquiry to be
propagated, and institutionalised the

22 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)


conducted. The suicide of Darshan
Solanki raised questions on the
measures taken (or not taken) by
IITs and other central universities
following the institutional murder of
Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central
University (HCU). Rohith’s death
raised burning questions about the
institutional discrimination faced
by students hailing from oppressed
backgrounds in higher education.
IITs and other central universities
have a notorious record of students
from marginalised sections dying
by suicide over the years. Vemula
and Solanki’s cases, along with the
harassment of students like Payal
Tadvi – a first-generation tribal
student – leading to her suicide, have
raised critical questions about the
toxic role of caste discrimination
meted out against Dalits,
Adivasis, and other marginalised
communities. Similarly, Najeeb
Ahmed, a student of JNU who went
missing in October 2016, after being
attacked by students of the Akhil
Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP),
is yet to be found. His family still
awaits justice.
Now with NEP 2020, and the
introduction of four-year multiple-
entry-multiple-exit degree
programmes also known as FYUP,
the exclusion and elimination of
students coming from poor and
marginalised sections will get
institutionalized. Delhi University,
Lucknow University and other
prominent universities across India
are implementing this anti-inclusive
degree programme that encourages
students to leave their education
in between with the false hope of
completion at a later date. It is a
reality that students with graduate
degrees are unable find jobs in the
market at present. Now, by allowing
students to exit at the end of the first,
second and third years with merely
a certificate, a diploma, or a degree
respectively, their job prospects will
obviously worsen.
Promotion of
Online Education is
Incentivisation of Scams
and Loot of Students
NEP 2020 talks in details about
the utilisation of online/digital
education as a model to increase
the gross enrolment ration (GER).
The recent case of GeekLurn, an
online education institution setup
post NEP 2020, exposed how the
aspirations of students are exploited
by profit hungry people without any
commitment to learning. GeekLurn
promised students quality training
in specific courses related to
information technology. Students,
in order to access the course, took
loans amounting to Rs 2,00,000
to Rs 5,00,000. However, after
the payment of fees, the online
education-company not only failed
to deliver the promised classes but
flew away taking crores of students’
rupees with them. Over 2000
students across the country are
protesting this scam, yet the state
government or union government
does not have any policy of providing
relief to students who are ending
up paying the loan which they have
taken. The case of Byju’s and other
online learning platforms is also the
same; here too cases of harassment
and failure to deliver promised
services have surfaced. The online/
digital education model is another
method for companies to make
profits out of aspirations of students.
Gujarat Governments
GIFT Policy: A
Replication of SEZ Model
of Education in India
Modelled on the lines of the Special
Economic Zone (SEZ) Policy, the
GIFT City (Gujarat International
Finance Tec-City) that Gujarat
government has established would
have foreign universities setting up
their campuses in India as offshore
entities. The rules governing these
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 23
POLICY WATCH
institutions lack clarity and meaning.
Will the UGC or any Indian authority
monitor them? We are left with the
suspicion that rules governing the
host country will prevail.
Along with this, another dangerous
provision for allowing ‘repatriate
profit’ earned from student’s fees
to their host country symbolises
how the Modi government’s new
policy encourages not just brain
drain but drain of wealth too. These
institutions have complete autonomy
to design their own policies regarding
the hiring of faculty, admissions,
and fees at a time when the same has
been curtailed or limited in public
funded universities through extreme
centralisation and control.
Faculty Recruitment and
Destruction of Public
Funded Education
After systematically destroying
public funded the education, Modi
government is now hammering the
last nail in its coffin by appointing
faculty members whose academic
records are dubious, with issues
of plagiarism and cases of massive
corruption being reported in the
university recruitment in DU
and other central universities.
By appointing academically sub-
standard and dubious faculty whose
allegiance lies with BJP and the Sangh
Parivar and its ideology of hate and
propaganda, the Modi government
is turning colleges, universities,
and institutions under the union
government into propaganda centres
that will disseminate the politics
of Hindutva. These will no longer
remain centres of higher learning.
Under the Modi government,
education is being turned into a
commodity and a tool for spreading
hate. The need of the hour is to
unite and resist these draconian
changes in education and reclaim our
universities to create an inclusive and
democratic society. n
 POLICY WATCH
Bonanza for the Corporates
M
odi led BJP government is reportedly
introducing several bills in the Monsoon
session of the parliament that will provide
free access for the corporates and private players to
exploit country’s natural resources and it’s Commons, by
restricting/excluding the rights of the people. The bills, not
only adversely impact the environment; it will snatch away
the rights of the people over their traditional resources.
Forest (Conservation)
Amendment Bill 2023
Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 takes a
significant portion of forests out of the purview of FCA,
considers a number of non-forestry activities as forestry
activities, overlooks Forest Rights Act 2006 and Gram
Sabha consent and aims to build a more centralized forest
governance. The Bill clearly states that the objective is
to eliminate all those provisions which “restrain the
authorities from undertaking any change in the land use
and allowing any development or utility related work”. For
any project in such forest lands which are now excluded
from regulation of FCA, there will be no need to have forest
clearance and compliance to Forest Rights act (FRA) 2006.
Eventually, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional
Forest Dwellers living in those lands will be deprived of
their rights of land and livelihoods.
The Bill is in accordance with the Central Government’s
policies of ‘ease of doing businesses’ where thousands
kilometer of ecosensitive zones in border areas of
Himalayan, Trans-Himalayan and North Eastern regions,
can be taken over by private parties disregarding the bio-
geographic values and rights of local indigenous and forest
dweller communities. The aim is not the restoration of the
forest ecosystem but to make forest lands easily available
for the corporates. Further, as plantation or reforestation
on land which are not specified in government records
needs no clearance under FCA, it would facilitate private
forests and their commercial use.
The preamble of the bill claims to enable actions to
achieve national targets of Net Zero Emission by 2070,
to enhance the forest carbon stocks through ecologically
balanced sustainable development, to create carbon sink
of additional 2.5 to 3.0 billion tons of CO2 equivalent by
2030 as envisaged by Nationally Determined Contribution
targets and to increase forest and tree cover to one-third
of its land area. It is to be noted that the carbon stock
of the country as recently reported has risen from 6663
million ton in 2011 to 7204 million ton in 2021 which is
much lower than this super ambitious target. Moreover,
24 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
the action plans in the Bill like granting exemptions to
numerous projects, designing model to legalize forest
land diversion, permitting more ‘non forest’ activities
everything goes exactly to the opposite to what is claimed
in the preamble. The intention to increase the forest
cover rapidly is an attempt to make forest land available
for funded plantations in the name of combating climate
change and pulling fund for carbon storage. The proposed
amendments bear a flawed approach of building carbon
stocks focusing mostly on plantations and weaken the
significance of protection and conservation of forests
and forest rights.
The FCA amendment Bill 2023 needs to be seen in the light
of the gradual hegemonic control over the forests and serial
assaults on nature, natural resources and livelihoods by
the Central Government. From diluting EIA Notification
to multiple violations of FRA, this Government has made
all efforts to weaken and dismantle the environmental and
forest regulations in the name of ‘ease of doing business’.
The anti-people ploy of this Government continues in
the present FC Amendment Bill 2023. The Preamble of
the Bill symbolically mentions about India’s tradition
of preserving forests and bio-diversity but deliberately
avoids mentioning about Forest Rights Act 2006, Gram
Sabha and Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled
Areas) Act 1996 (PESA) even for once and completely
disregards economic, social
and environmental rights of the
forest dependent communities
contrary to what is claimed in the
Preamble. The broad exemption
list has been introduced to ensure
more and more diversion of forest
land and displacement of the forest
dependent communities.
SCAN TO READ
A detailed analysis of the bill was ARTICLE
published in May 2023 issue of
Liberation. It can also be accessed at
www.liberation.org.in
Biological Diversity
(Amendment) Bill, 2022
The government is planning to introduce the Biological
Diversity (Amendment) Bill to change Biological Diversity
Act, 2002. The act was introduced to address to concerns
raised at United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) 1992 for the conservation of biological
diversity and fair, equitable sharing of the monetary
benefits from the commercial use of biological resources

and traditional knowledge. It recognises contributions of
local and indigenous communities to conservation and
sustainable use through traditional knowledge, practices,
and innovations. The CBD, of which India became a
signatory in 1994 has two additional protocols - Cartagena
Protocol on biosafety (2003), and Nagoya Protocol on
access and benefit sharing (2014).
The present bill in the name of encouraging the Indian
system of medicine and cultivation of wild medicinal
plants and fast-tracking foreign investment in the sector
dilutes the rights of the indigenous and local communities
from access and benefit sharing. Under the new bill
registered Ayush practitioners who have been practising
traditional medicine can access ‘any biological resource
and its associated knowledge for commercial utilisation’,
without giving prior intimation to the state biodiversity
board.
Ritwick Dutta, environmental lawyer notes (Hindustan
Times, Dec 2021) that “The amendment seems to be done
with the sole intention of providing benefit to the Ayush
industry. The main focus of the bill is to facilitate trade
in biodiversity as opposed to conservation, protection
of biodiversity and knowledge of the local communities.
The amendments are completely contrary to the aim and
objective of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.”
Furthermore, the bill lacks a mechanism for obtaining
prior informed consent of the local and indigenous
communities. Nagoya Protocol, in addition to a fair and
equitable benefit sharing requires a signatory country
to ensure that prior informed consent of indigenous
and a local community is obtained for access to genetic
Retrenched Workers' Protest
Complete Hundred Days in
Uttarakhand
The workers of SAMAJ Automotive Co. held a demonstration
in Uttarakhand town of Rudrapur on 21 July against illegal
retrenchment by the company management. The protest
was called by SIDCUL Shramik Samyukt Morcha, an
umbrella organisation of various unions in that industrial
area. They will hold a bigger protest on 28 July when their
protest completes 100 days.
SIDCUL Shramik Samyukt Morcha’s president Dinesh
Tiwari said that the retrenched workers are demanding
their reinstatement but the state BJP government, district
administration, Labour Department and elected people’s
representatives all are protecting illegal management of
this company. The government and the labour department
are not implementing the law on various pretexts which is
a starkly anti-worker and illegal act. The BJP government
is openly favouring capitalists.
The All India Central Council of Trade Unions leader
POLICY WATCH
resources and traditional knowledge.
The bill also removes the direct role of local bodies and
benefit claimers in determining mutually agreed terms.
Removing the role of local bodies, the bill instead calls
for mutually agreed terms between the applicant and
the concerned Biodiversity Management Committee
represented by National Biodiversity Authority (NBA).
Finally, the bill also adds a controversial term “codified
traditional knowledge” and excluding it from the purview
of benefits claims. The bill has not defined the term
‘codified traditional knowledge’ and also there is no
mention of such term in CBD or Nagoya or Cartagena
protocols. The World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO) defines codified traditional knowledge as
“traditional knowledge which is in some systematic and
structured form, in which the knowledge is ordered,
organised, classified and categorised in some manner”
Experts have warned that such an exception completely
dilutes the act and if the WIPO definition is used as basis,
all local traditional knowledge would be exempt from
benefit sharing provisions considering the fact that the
People’s Biodiversity Register under the previous act
will contain comprehensive and organised information
on “the availability and knowledge of local biological
resources, their medicinal or any other use, or any
traditional knowledge associated with them”.
The present bill clearly is in contravention of the objective
and purpose of the CBD. Rather than protecting the
biodiversity and the rights of indigenous and local people
over traditional knowledge, the bill opens up the sector
for large scale exploitation. n
in Uttarakhand KK Bora said that earlier owner of this
company sold it out. As per the labour laws of the land all
permanent workers must be retained on their posts, but
the new owner retrenched forty one of them. Without taking
mandatory NOCs from the government, the owner had
started production with the help of new untrained workers,
which again is against the rules and dangerous to the extent
that in a few months almost a dozen new untrained workers
have been injured while working on heavy machinery. The
administration and labour department remains a mute
spectator failing to take any action against the company
management.
The protesting workers condemned the labour
commissioner's stance, who did not take action in spite
of company's own submission of violations during tripartite
talks. The district labour commissioner acted in favour of
the management by ignoring the tripartite agreement made
in his presence and abruptly sent the whole matter to the
labour court. The workers are determined to continue
their struggle with their demand of reinstatement and for
compensation to the injured workers. n
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 25
 REPORTS

“Ambedkar Sudar” Award Presented to

CPIML General Secretary

V
iduthali Chiruthaikal Katchi (VCK) in Tamil
Nadu led by Comrade Thirumavalavan
presented “Ambedkar Sudar” (Ambedkar
Flame) award for 2023 to comrade Dipankar in a grand
function at Chennai on 28 May 2023.
VCK has been presenting awards to people’s leaders
and personalities instituted in the name of Ambedkar,
Periyar, Marx, Ayothi Dasar, Kamarajar, Quide-e-Millet
and Semmozhi (classical language) every year. This year
“Ambedkar Sudar” award was presented to Comrade
Dipankar, Periyar award was presented to Comrade D
Raja, the general Secretary of the Communist Party of
India (CPI), Marx award to Comrade K Bala Krishnan,
the state secretary of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) (CPI-M), Kamarajar award to the assembly
speaker Appavu, Ayothi Dasar award to former minster
of Delhi, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Quaid-e-Millet award
to Mohan Kumar, former Vice Chancellor of National
Law School University of India (NLSUI) – Bangalore
and Semmozhi award to Tamil scholar Thayammal
Aravanan.
The award giving function was presided by Comrade
Thirumavalavan and began with folk songs. The
VCK general secretaries Sinthanai Selvan and
Ravikumar were the co-conveners of the function.
The foremost award, Ambedkar Sudar was presented
to Comrade Dipankar by comrade Thirumavalavan
and presentations of other wards followed. In addition
to an introduction by Thirumavalavan about each
awardee, videos were also screened explaining their
contributions to the society and the people’s movement
which was well appreciated by audience. Awardees also
addressed the audience after receiving the award.
Thol. Thirumavalavan said it was a black day because
the country’s president was not invited to the function
of inauguration of the new parliament building by
Modi while chiefs of mutts were invited. He called the
incident as a mark of Sanatan.
He reiterated the stand of VCK and its commitment
to work with the left, democratic and progressive
forces to defeat the BJP in the 2024 elections. He said
the BJP-RSS are not a regular party like others but a
fascist party that is committed to build a Hindu Rashtra,
replacing reactionary Manu smriti of barbarian era with
the modern day constitution by Dr Ambedkar. He also
called upon the people to overthrow the Modi regime.
The Politburo member of the party comrade
Shankar, CCMs Balasundaram, Chandramohan and
Balasubramanian, state secretary Pazha. Asaithambi,
CCCM Krishnaveni, Standing Committee Members G
Ramesh, Simpson, Eraniappan, K Balasubramanian,
Valathan, SCMs Kannaiyan, Varadarajan, Dhanavel,
Rajasankar, Adhiyaman and C Rangasami joined the
function along with hundreds of activists of the party,
CPIML, in Tamil Nadu. n

"Muslims Subjected to Outright India is facing a relentless assault

by the forces controlling the levers
Marginalisation and Ghettoisation of the Indian state, the battle for
social equality and mobility is
are Emerging as India's New Dalits" being sought to be systematically
pushed back and constitutionally
Below of is the full text of the speech delivered by Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya, empowered citizens of free and
GS while receving the receives the ‘Ambedkar Sudar’ Award, instituted by the the diverse India are being subjected to
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi on May 28, 2023 in Chennai fearful regimentation and hate-filled
division, it is extremely humbling

H
onourable President
Comrade Thirumavalavan,
Comrades Sinthanai Selvan,
D Ravikumar and other leaders and
members of VCK, esteemed fellow
awardees Comrade D Raja, Comrade
K Balakrishnan, Mr. Appavu, Mrs
Thayammal Arvaanan, Mr Mohan
Gopal and Sri Rajendra Pal Gautam,
comrades and friends,
Vanakkam! A very good evening to
you all!
At a time when the Constitution of
to receive an award in the name
of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief
architect of India's Constitution
who gave India's oppressed the
clarion call of annihilation of caste.
Thank you comrades of VCK for this
pleasant surprise. In recent years,

26 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)


we have been seeing a welcome
trend of coming closer among
various streams of India's ongoing
movement for social transformation.
I sincerely hope that we can carry this
forward to build powerful waves of
anti-fascist resistance across the
country.
Dr. Ambedkar had given us not just
the call of annihilation of caste
but he had also indicated ways
that could take us forward in this
direction. He rejected the idea that
seeks to legitimise caste as division
of labour, on the contrary he called
it division of labourers and insisted
on uniting labourers or workers as
an independent class. The glorious
legacy of Independent Labour Party
left behind by Dr. Ambedkar remains
a treasurehouse of inspiration and
insight in our continuing quest for
social transformation as does his
contribution to working class rights
achieved through his role as Labour
member of the Executive Council.
More than temple entry he wanted
equal access of the excluded people
to all public resources. More than
intercaste dining he emphasised
intercaste marriage to stop the
reproduction of caste through
endogamy and fought tirelessly to
secure rights of women to make free
choices in life.
He introduced reservation as an
affirmative action against deeply
entrenched social injustice and asked
India's oppressed to move forward in
life through the triad of education,
agitation and organisation. Today the
right to reservation and education is
facing a renewed attack. Subversion
of reservation, privatisation of
education and casualisation of
jobs are a trident directed against
India's oppressed and deprived poor
to stop the onward march of social
mobility and equality. On my way to
Chennai I had a day's halt in Nagpur
and I visited Deekshabhoomi. The
mass embracing of Buddhism by
Dr. Ambedkar and his followers was
a huge social protest against caste
oppression, a mass rejection of vedic
scriptures and an emphatic collective
exercise of the constitutional right
to choose one's religion, and it
happened right in the ideological
capital of Manuvad and Indian
fascism.
Right at the time of adoption of
India's Constitution, Dr Ambedkar
issued a set of clear warnings. He
told us not to be complacent with
the introduction of universal adult
franchise, but to fight hard against
economic and social inequality,
which if not checked, would render
the equality of vote meaningless. For
Dr. Ambedkar, liberty, equality and
fraternity represented an integral
package which alone could put an
end to the stigma of the caste system.
Today while Dalits experience
renewed exclusion on different
levels, Muslims subjected to outright
marginalisation and ghettoisation
are emerging as India's new Dalits
even as Christians too face increased
prejudices and even violent attacks
in many parts of India. Babasaheb
warned us against the cult of bhakti
in politics which could only be a sure
way of democracy's degeneration
and descent into dictatorship. Today
this bhakti cult is overshadowing
India's entire system of knowledge
and information dissemination.
Above all, Babasaheb Ambedkar had
given us the sharpest warning against
letting Hindu Raj become a reality
in India. He termed it the greatest
calamity that could fall upon India
and asked us to prevent it at all costs.
Today while we have assembled
here in Chennai, a new Parliament
building, built at great cost to India's
exchequer at a time when the people
of India were reeling under the
pandemic, has been inaugurated
by India's megalomaniac Prime
Minister in a brazen travesty of
constitutional spirit and propriety.
The Sangh-BJP establishment claims
credit for giving India her first
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 27
REPORTS
Adivasi President, preceded by a
Dalit President, but when the time
came for the laying of foundation or
inauguration of the new Parliament
building, the two Presidents have
been denied their constitutional
due. We cannot miss the fact that
the new Parliament building and
its inauguration are loaded with
anti-democratic anti-republican
symbolism. When the inauguration
of an abode of democracy in a secular
republic resembles the coronation
of a king in a monarchy, there is
something evidently and seriously
wrong with it. It marks a clear
negation of the very spirit and vision
enunciated in the Preamble to our
Constitution.
Only the other day the apex court
affirmed the administrative powers
of the elected government of Delhi
and asked the Central government
not to intrude into the federal rights
of the Delhi government through the
office of the LG, but the executive has
declared a war on the judiciary and
on the federal framework of India's
constitutional democracy by issuing
an ordinance to nullify the verdict
of the Supreme Court Constitution
Bench. It is time we the people of
India woke up to the threat of the
greatest calamity that Dr. Ambedkar
had warned us against. We have a
disaster to defeat and a dream to
win - the dream of a modern India
free of exploitation and oppression
for which our freedom fighters and
great martyrs had sacrificed their all.
I humbly accept this year's Ambedkar
Sudar Award on behalf of the CPI(ML)
and the revolutionary communist
camp of India and rededicate myself
to the mission of annihilation of
caste and transformation of India
into a robust democracy, staunchly
secular, vibrantly diverse and
genuinely socialist. Thank you all.
Inquilab Zindabad! n
 REPORTS
Santhal Pargana:
Corporate Land Loot
\ NANDITA BHATTACHARYA
T
he Dumka district, falling
in the Santhal Pargana of
Jharkhand state used to be
one of its largest districts. It has a
rich history of struggle against the
colonial rule of the British. Legendary
freedom fighters like Siddho-Kanu,
Chand-Bhairav and Phulo-Jhano were
born here. Today, under Modi rule,
the predatory corporates have begun
eyeing the forests, land and resources
of this region while posing a threat
to the environment and indigenous
culture of the tribal population. A
united, long-drawn struggle is needed
to counter this challenge.
Bundu, Tamad
Panchapargana is famous for
its natural beauty as well as its
revolutionary legacy. The Ulgulan in
Jharkhand started from Dombari. The
revolutionary history of Birsa Munda
is also linked to this region.
The Resha water body in Humta
panchayat has been given clearance
by the Chief Minister. Earlier, the
refusal of permission to this water
body from the Gram Sabha had led
to its closure. The government is
claiming that this land is not Raiyat
but belongs to the Pradhan and the
panchayat members. It is worth
noting that the Gram Pradhan had
given his consent for the construction
of the water body but the Gram sabha
objected because of which this project
could not be completed.
If the Resha water body were to
be constructed, it would lead to
submergence of many villages and
forest under water. The government
clearance to this project has led to a
sense of fear among the people. The
will have to organize themselves
under the Gram Sabha to stop the
28 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
construction of such disastrous
project.
Another big project in the Tamad
region is the gold-mine project. This
project, which encompasses many
villages, including Behra Bera was
given clearance by the government
two decades ago and some work was
also initiated. Even after 75 years of
independence, this village lacks clean
drinking water. Toilets constructed
under the ‘Swatch Bharat Abhiyan’
lie unused due to lack of water.
The lone government school in the
village runs without a government
appointed teacher. The graduates of
the village teach in that school. Access
by road to this village is difficult.
The government propaganda doing
the rounds is that once the mine
become operational, all the basic
infrastructure will automatically
get developed. But people know
that they would lose their land and
forests in the process. The Gram
Mukhia Khuslal Munda says that the
project was stopped after a struggle
was launched by the people. Village
elder Shashi Bhushan Munda recalls
that many lives were lost in that
struggle. The police used to arrest the
locals on charge of being a Naxalite
and subjected to torture. The villagers
remained resolute in their struggle
and as a result, their children are
breathing fresh air. But for how long
can they resist the attempts to build
the gold-mine without building a
grass-root resistance?
Ghatshila
Power hungry corporates are giving a
caste-clash narrative to a controversy
between Kurmis and Mahtos in an
attempt to weaken the unity within
the Gram Sabha.
In the Mahulisaal village, the
government is going ahead with drone-
survey, preparing property card,
online land consolidation and land
bank. The purpose is to complete the
ground work for evicting tribals from
their land. Government officials are
not providing information under the
RTI act. On 25 March, many residents
from nearby villages gathered for a
meeting. The agenda was to prepare
a blue print for launching an agitation
against the opening of Panna mines
in Ghatshila. Many sit-ins followed
this meeting. Three attempts to get
information using RTI failed to get
any response. The government and
elected representatives are hand-in-
glove in weakening the Gram Sabhas.
The elected representatives only lend
support orally to the movement but
fail to address issues at the grassroots.
The people of Ghatshila have seen
with their own eyes the havoc
caused to the lives of the locals by
the Uranium mining in neighbouring
Jadugoda. They do not want the same
to happen to them.
We spoke to many locals and Gram
Pradhans to know their problems.
Kishan Munda is Pradhan of Tola
village which lies in the affected zone.
All said that in lieu of their land, they
would not accept a government job.
Other problems in the village include
the absence of a doctor and medicines
in the health centre. There is no
facility for delivery of a new born.
Ambulance is available 40 km away
from the village. The village school
has only two teachers.
We spoke to about 40 people in
Bautiya village. It was a common
complain that the public distribution
system, widow and old age pension
schemes were in a poor shape. There
are only two graduates in the entire
village. There is now more emphasis
on education of girls.
Jadunath Haansda, the local Gram
Pradhan teaches English in a private
school. He has been leading the

struggle against mining in the region.
On 18th June, a convention was
organized in the area where local
issues as well as threats posed by
mining were discussed. 300 people
participated in the convention.
Shikaripada
In Shikaripada region, Naupahad and
Simani Jod are among the 21 villages
Hazaribagh:
A Militant Struggle against Displacement
I
n the Gondalpur panchayat,
situated in the Hazaribagh district
of Jharkhand, villagers are on a
struggle path with a resolve not to
give even an inch of their land to
Adani, NTPC and JSW companies.
Leaders of left parties expressed their
solidarity with the ongoing sit-in.
The North Karnapura region is
situated in the south-west of
Hazaribagh district. This region is
endowed with a lot of natural beauty
comprising of medicinal plants, hills
and forests. There are also large
patches of fertile flat land in which
farmers produce 2-3 crops in a year. 22
small and big rivers originate from the
hills of this area. There is an elephant
corridor in this area. Coal and other
minerals are present in this region.
This region is historically of
significance. It encompasses Isko,
Mahodi, Kolhua and Pakri-Barwadeeh
hills. These hills contain numerous
caves which were once home to the
primitive man. Signs and drawings on
the cave walls shed light on the life,
language and culture of that time. The
remnants of the capital of Ramgarh
king (1368 A.D.) and forts of Badam
(1600 A.D.) are still present.
Today, when the humanity is facing
severe environmental crisis, this
region needs to be conserved. Small
check dams can be constructed to
affected by mining. Naupahad village
with a population of around 600
comprises of 5 tolas. Only 50 people
are literate. Electricity reached this
village 10 years ago but there is no
arrangement for drinking water.
Drinking water supply was made
available in the village about3-4
months back after a long drawn
struggle. The road access to this
\ DEVKINANDAN BEDIA
supply water to the fields as well
as generate electricity. The region
can supply grains and vegetables.
However, with the advent of the
Modi government, the corporates
like Ambani-Adani, Jindal-Mittal,
Hindalco, Dalmia, NTPC and JSW
along with foreign companies- in all
35 companies- have been allotted coal
blocks in North Karnpur. The Karnpur
Bachao Sangarsh Samiti has been
leading a movement since 2004 to
protect this region.
After the establishment of Tata
industry and HEC in Jamshedpur
and Ranchi respectively, dozens
of villages were uprooted and the
residents lost their land as well as
culture. The affected could not get
the promised job. The villagers of
Gondalpura panchayat do not want
to lose their land, identity and culture.
They are witnessing the dispossession
of Pakri-Barwadih villages after the
commissioning of the NTPC plant.
The people have been fighting against
the Koel Karo project as well as the
Netharhat firing range. Many people
have lost their lives but the fight
continues. The villagers of Gondalpur
have initiated their struggle to save
their water, forests and land.
About 130 people have been booked
for breach of peace and a zilabadar
notice has been served to an innocent
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 29
REPORTS
village is in poor shape. Agriculture
is the main means of livelihood of the
people but poor irrigation facility led
to a drought this year. 30-35 people
from this village go to other states
to seek employment. The villagers
in the 21 villages have decided to
strengthen their gram Sabhas to fight
against corporate loot. n
youth to expel him out of district. The
Gondalpura coal block lying in North
Karmpura coal region was allotted
to Adani Enterprises in 2020. Five
villages are being affected by this
project. In the Goandalpura, Gaali,
Balodar, Hahe and Phulang villages,
1268.5 acre of land has been acquired
for coal mining out of which 551.9 acre
is Raiyat land, 542.75 acre is forest land
and 173.74 acre is Gair Majarua land. In
Gondalpur 284.63 acre, in Gaali 175.45
acre and 91.51 acre Raiyat land will be
acquired. There will be no acquisition
of Raiyat land in Hahe and Phulang
villages. A total of 781 families would
be displaced by the project.
The 550 odd acre of land to be
acquired in three villages is very
fertile and produces multiple crops
and vegetables. Because of water
conservation from the neighbouring
hills, the water table is very high at 20
feet. An acre of land produces 20-25
quintal of paddy. Chilly and sugarcane
crop is produced and the jaggery is of
a very high quality. The chilly farming
fetches as much as 20-25 thousand
rupees to a farmer every year.
The land to be acquired has hills,
jungles and rivers. The juggles are
home to Sakhua, Mahua, Kendr, Piyar,
Badhar, Jamun and Jackfruit as well
as many herbs and edible roots. Many
rivers originate in this area. In Balodar
 REPORTS
village, Gogardha and Gudlagwa
rivers flow while Kare Rekha flows
through Gali village and Gate Kocha
flow through Hahe village. These
four rivers join together to form Dhol
Katwa river which later becomes the
Badmahee river. This river merges
with Damodar river in Vishrampur.
Mining would destroy the origin of
these rivers and eventually dry them.
Castiest Attacks on Dalits and
Vulnerable Must be Opposed
S
hivnath Ram, who belonged
to the Dalit community in
Muzaffarpur was murdered
over drinking water dispute, whereas
Rajkumar Mahto was killed by
casteist forces in Saran District for
Bihar, because his mother refused
to clean the house of an upper caste
person. In both cases the Bihar police
and administration is recalcitrant
in taking stern action against the
culprits. The CPIML will soon
meet the Chief Minister to demand
immediate action.
CPIML Bihar Secretary Kunal and
MLA from Phulwari Sharif Gopal
Ravidas told on 18 July that Shivnath
Ram was murdered in Sahebganj of
Muzaffarpur district by strongmen
with BJP connections. An auto
driver Rajkumar Mahto in Saran
was also killed by similar forces.
30 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
These forests are home to elephants,
bears, peacocks and rabbits. The
jungle forms part of the elephant
corridor. Destruction of the jungles
would also destroy the habitat of
these animals.
For acquiring the land, a Jan Sunwai
took place on 15 July, 2020. The
villagers unanimously voiced their
protest over the takeover because it
Such attacks on poor and vulnerable
communities raises questions on the
Mahagathbandhan government in the
state which is not taking appropriate
measures to put a control on the
castiest and domineering forces
emboldened by the BJP.
Muzaffarpur Killing
Sixty five year old mango seller
Shivnath Ram was brutally murdered
on 2 July in Parsauni Dube village
Sahebganj block. At night he used to
work as watchman in a poultry farm
of Siyaram Singh. In the morning of
2 July he was ‘caught’ drinking water
near the poultry farm at a place owned
by Anesh Thakur. Anesh Thakur called
him Untouchable and started with his
associates brutally beating Shivnath
Ram. Shivnath ran inside the poultry
farm but could not save his life as the
violated the provisions of the Land
Acquisition Act of 2013. Under the
Forest Rights Act 2006, 2008 and
2012, prior to acquisition, consent of
80 % people is required. The Deputy
Commissioner prepared a fabricated
report favouring Adani in which it
was said that considering the issues
of environment, collective good and
development, the majority of the
people were in favour of the project! n
killer came in and beat him up till he was
dead. A case is registered in Sahebganj
thana under FIR 296/23 but none of
the killers are arrested yet while the
police is now threatening the family
of the deceased on various pretexts.
Allegedly police have taken bribes
from the killers for not taking action.
A CPIML team visited the aggrieved
family of Shivnath Ram. The team
consisted of Vishwakarma Sharma,
Vir Bahadur Sahni, Vidyasagar, Munna
Kushwaha, Rampirit Paswan, Harilal
Ram and Samir.
Incident at Saran
Twenty four year old auto-rickshaw
driver Rajkumar Mahto was killed on
9 July in Sonepur of Saran district.
He was killed because his mother
refused to work as domestic labour
in the house of one Vikram Singh.
For lower caste people to work in
the upper caste houses is a feudal
exploitative practice which Rajkumar
refused to obey and asked his mother
to abstain from such type of works.
This angered Vikram Singh who
killed Rajkumar by a brutal beating.
The only breadwinner of his family,
his death has orphaned his wife and
an infant girl without any source of
income. The administration again has
not taken action against the killer. A
CPIML team visited the village and
demanded action against the killers.
The party has also asked to provide
Rs. 10 lakh immediate relief to the
affected family. CPIML is planning
to hold a protest against this atrocity
and callus administration. n

Lathicharge on Agitating Teachers
is Condemnable: CPIML
CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal
has said that the government has
complicated the teachers' rules badly
giving way to many apprehensions.
In place of satisfying the agitating
teachers, they were subjected
to barbaric lathicharge which is
condemnable. The Mahagathbandhan
government cannot adopt the path of
repression in this way. The CPIML
condemns the lathicharge on teachers
aspiring for regular appointments.
He said that the teachers’ manual
has been controversial since the
beginning. Teachers’ organisations
and candidates for teachers
examination are continuously
opposing the holding of exams. We
had requested the government to
seriously listen to their demands
and reconsider the examination,
but on the contrary the government
ended the domicile policy. It is only
natural for teachers and candidates
for teachers examination to get angry.
We demand the state government to
adopt the path of dialogue instead of
repression. Domicile policy must be
implemented so that the students and
youth of Bihar can get employment.
He also said that the BJP should not
ASHA Workers’ Historic Strike in Bihar
T
he ASHA and ASHA
Facilitators in Bihar are on an
indefinite strike since 12 July
for their long pending and unfulfilled
demands. The main demands include
recognition of their work as workers
or employees and increase in wages
which should not be termed as
‘reward’, to Rs. 10000 per month.
They are also demanding disbursal
of pending amount of Rs. 1000 per
month from April 2019 to November
2020.
shed crocodile tears in this matter.
When BJP was in power, it resorted to
lathi charge and firing on candidates
for teacher examination many times.
The BJP has never been serious
about giving teachers the status of
government employees.
The central government has cheated
the youth of the whole country and
through the Agneepath scheme
played with their future. Where did
the promise of two crore jobs every
year go, the BJP should first answer
this? The people of Bihar know the
reality of the BJP very well, so they
are not going to fall in their trap.
It is not appropriate to
remove domicile policy
in teacher reinstatement
CPIML State Secretary Kunal has said
that it is very unexpected and unfair to
suddenly remove the domicile policy
in the midst of the ongoing process
of teacher recruitment. Due to this,
the rights of the students of Bihar will
be taken away and the anger of the
already angry teachers' organisations
and candidates will flare up further.
He said that it was expected that the
government would take a positive
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 31
REPORTS
decision in favour of teachers'
organisations and candidates, but on
the contrary, it has disappointed them
further by abolishing the domicile
policy.
CPIML has been standing with
teachers' organisations and
candidates since the beginning. We
also made efforts at many levels
and efforts were made to get the
government to reconsider the new
rules. But the matter seems to be
moving in the other direction. We
still demand the government to hold
talks with teachers' organisations and
candidates and find a solution to the
matter.
He said that the government argues it
is necessary to remove the domicile
policy for the recruitment of better
teachers. Are there no capable
candidates in Bihar? If this is the
case then it is very worrying. The
government will have to answer this
as to why the state's education system
is in such a bad condition.
Domicile policy is applicable in many
states. In Jharkhand, 100 percent
domicile is applicable in primary
teacher recruitment. This policy is
also applicable in Madhya Pradesh.
That's why the Bihar government
should be worried about unemployed
youth of State and should take a
rational decision. n
 REPORTS
The strike is continuing for more than a week now in
almost all PHCs, CHCs and Referral Hospitals. The ASHA
workers are not attending to work in around 400 primary
health centres across all the districts of Bihar.
The strike is called by ASHA Samyukt Sangharsh Manch
with ASHA unions affiliated with AICCTU and CITU
having a leading role. The strike response is overwhelming
with many non unionised ASHA workers striking their
work making this strike historic. Many governmental
schemes like vaccinations, and maternity and child care
work is being affected with the strike. The striking ASHAs
and ASHA Facilitators are undeterred in face of various
types of intimidation and threats by the concerned health
and administrative officials. The ASHA workers’ leader
Shashi Yadav has condemned the state government’s
ignoring and threatening manoeuvres.
CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal has demanded
from the Mahagathbandhan government of Bihar to
start negotiations with the ASHA workers who are on
an indefinite statewide strike for the last 11 days. The
party has condemned the intimidatory and repressive
tactics of the state administration with respect to the
striking ASHA workers.
The strike notices were served in all the hospitals one
month in advance along with a demand charter which
is as follows:
The main demands include:
1. The state government provides Rs. 1000 per month
as ‘reward’ to ASHA which is quite insulting and
must be renamed as ‘regular monthly honorarium’
and this amount must be increased to Rs. 10,000
per month.
2. Even this Rs. 1000 per month has not been disbursed
during the period April 2019 to November 2020. This
should immediately be paid without delay.
3. The wage payment pending before the same was
started through online payment mechanism should
be paid.
4. The payment process must be immediate with
uniformity and full transparency.
5. The prevalent corruption and commission/bribes
must be stopped in the payment of ASHA workers.
6. They should be provided full dress instead of a
single Saree, that must include blouses, petticoats
and woollen jackets etc.
7. The ASHA Facilitators should also be provided with
full dress at state expenses.
8. The ASHA Facilitators be paid SVC (travelling
32 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)
expenses) for a full month at the rate of minimum
Rs. 500 per day.
9. The rates of awards/honorarium were decided many
years ago and they have not been revised for various
works the ASHAs have to perform besides their
regular work. These rates should also be revised.
10. ASHAs and Facilitators be regularised and given
status of state government employees.
11. Those who lost lives during working amidst the
pandemic must be provided with Rs. 4 Lakhs from
state cess and Rs. 50 lakhs from the central insurance
scheme as compensation.
12. ASHAs and Facilitators be included in all social
welfare schemes like pensions etc. Till then they
must be given a retirement package at Rs. 10 Lakhs.
13. The government must honour its agreement with
ASHA union made in January 2019 and implement
it immediately.
The ASHA workers’ unions have demanded action
against the hospital incharge in Bihta Dr. Krish Kumar
for misbehaving with the ASHAs on strike.
The president of Bihar Rajya ASHA Karyakarta Sangh
(Gope) Shashi Yadav informed that the second and third
days of the strike witnessed increased participation
with many ASHAs in distant areas joining in the strike.
Almost one lakh ASHA workers and ASHA Facilitators
are now on strike with rural health services completely
halted. She criticised the Nitish Kumar government in
Bihar for remaining unresponsive to the strike notice
and the demands of ASHAs. She also condemned the
administration for misbehaving and threatening strikers.
She asked to implement the government's own promises
made during the Budget session of the Bihar Assembly
and start negotiations immediately with the ASHAs on
their nine major demands.
On 17 July, the sixth day of strike, ASHAs’ took to streets
with strengthened resolve braving the increased threats
and intimidation of hospital admins. Although these six
days they did not interfere with the Emergency work as
well as the cases of delivery and childbirth. The strike is
peaceful and democratic. An ASHA worker from Siwan,
Saraswati Devi, died while sitting on the protest dharna.
Her condition suddenly deteriorated and she could not be
saved. The striking ASHAs in all centres paid her tribute
and resolved to carry forward her unfinished mission
of justice for ASHA workers throughout the country. n

CPIML Team Meets Family Members
of Jalalpur Mob-Lynching Victim
O
n July 5, 2023, a state-
level team of CPI(ML)
visited Jalalpur in Saran
district, where a brutal incident
of mob lynching took place on
June 28 in Bihar’s Saran district.
The investigating team met the
family members of the 55 year old
Mohammed Zahiruddin who was
killed by the mob and got detailed
information about the incident.
The investigating team spoke to
Mohammad Ali alias Bachchu Babu
at his residence in Majhwalia village
of Nagra block. He said that on June
28, three workers, including his driver
and Munshi, were carrying bones of
Delhi HC Observes
AISA Activists' House Arrest during
PM Modi's DU Visit as Illegal
C
iting 'security reasons' for the
PM visitat Delhi University,
student and AISA Activists
Abhigyan and Anjali were held in
detention at their flat from 9 am
till 2 pm, not allowing him to meet
any visitors. No warrant of any sort
wasbeen presented neither these
activists were informed as to how long
their house arrest would last.
On July 12, the Delhi High Court
in response to a the habeas corpus
filed by Abhigyan against the house
arrest observed that such detention
without any order or warrant is illegal.
Delivering the order, Justice Mridul
orally remarked: “Illegal custody is
an anathema and antithesis of rule
of law but the law applies equally to
the Police as it does to you. When a
law requires an act to be done, it has
to be done in that manner and no
other. Your allegation is for illegal
detention. You file a complaint. The
dead animals to a registered factory
in Janata Bazar, Tajpur.
The vehicle broke down near Bangra
village in Jalalpur block. In the
meantime, two people came and
accused the workers of carrying beef
and started creating a communal
situation. Soon, a mob of around 40-
50 people arrived and started beating
them up. The mob also attacked
the police who reached the spot.
Zahiruddin was taken to hospital
but was declared dead. The two other
workers managed to escape.
The CPI(ML) investigation team has
said that this incident of lynching
was not a accident but a pre-planned
Police does not have any immunity
for their action. If there is something,
law will take its own course but for
us to do anything at this stage, it will
be putting the cart before the horse.
This is a very unique case which is why
we were looking at it very carefully.”
Delhi HC gave liberty to Abhigyan to
approach the SHO of the Model Town
Police Station to file a complaint
against the officials who had detained
Abhigyan without any authorisation.
Why is PM Modi Afraid of
Students?
One can only imagine what 'safety'
threat Comrades Abhigyan and Anjali
could have posed to the PM, except
perhaps the threat posed by their
questions about the deteriorating
state of Delhi University and the
education system in the country.
The reality of Modi's idea of education
LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML) | AUGUST 2023 | 33
REPORTS
conspiracy by the BJP-RSS to create
communal tension in the region. The
team noted that Saran district is the
target of BJP and RSS and there have
been many incidents of mob lynching
and assaults against Muslims in
recent times.
The team demanded strong action
against the accused in the mob-
lynching. The team also called
upon the district administration to
provide security to the survivors
and take immediate actions to ensure
that attempts to create communal
polarisation in the area are foiled.
The investigation team comprised
Comrades Amarnath Yadav ex-
MLA (Darauli), Mahfuz from Siwan,
CPI (ML) Saran district secretary
Chairman Rai and others. n
reflects in the events that unfolded
when he was scheduled to attend
the Delhi University Centenary
Celebrations which was a part of
‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’! Hours
before the event started, the police
encircled the flat of these AISA
leaders and told them that they are
going to stay with them and they
won’t be allowed to leave the flat.
Anjali said that whatever happens
we will continue to ask questions
that matter. Silencing the voices
that raise questions is what the Modi
government wants in the campuses.
But we won't remain silent. Neither
the barricades nor the police force can
smother the voices of democracy and
dissent. n
 OBITUARY

Comrade Sugundan
Comrade Sugundan, at the age of 75, passed away on 6th July 2023 at Vellore Government
Hospital when he was under treatment for cardiac attack. Comrade Sugundan has been a whole
time activist of the party for the last 40 years, the state Vice President of AICCTU and also a former
state secretary for a brief period in 90s. He was also a delegate to the 11th party Congress at
Patna in February and participated in the deliberations enthusiastically.
Comrade Sugundan got attracted towards revolutionary politics, joined the party and became a
wholetime activist when he was active as a part of the Simpson company workers union in mid
‘70s in Chennai. He was active in organising party work in various districts of Tamil Nadu since the
underground days. He has contributed to organise agricultural labourers, peasants and workers
in various districts.
In his later period, for the last 20 years, he dedicated his life to organise workers in leather and
leather goods industries of Ambur – Vaniyambadi belt of erstwhile Vellore district after the demise of comrade A Venkatesan
who was fondly known as AV, the founder leader of the union. Comrade Sugundan has led various struggles of workers
of various factories in the leather industry in the belt. He had been an uncompromising leader committed to the cause of
developing class struggle and was most concerned about the challenge of developing class consciousness among the
working class. He had stood with the party in most challenging times despite his own reservations on some issues.
He had also been active in developing a farmer’s organisation in Dindigul district until he breathed last. He has also advised
and assisted various political friends to intensify workers and other people’s movement irrespective of their political affiliations.
Next to comrade A Venkatesan (AV), Sugundan is another comrade the movement of leather and leather goods industry
workers will never forget. We are committed to carry forward his unfinished tasks.
Let us Uphold the Memory of Comrade Sugundan ! Red Salutes to Comrade Sugundan! n

Comrade Gopal Singh

Comrade Gopal Singh passed away on 13 July at an early age of 55. He was suffering from liver
ailments and breathed his last in a hospital in Delhi. He began his association with CPIML in
2002 when he joined the Bihta-Maner area committee. Very friendly and jovial comrade, he was
popular and friends with all local comrades. He led a long struggle against displacement owing
to wrong planning of a four-lane highway near his village and forced the government to withdraw.
When sand mining workers at Sone river became unemployed because of the use of heavy
earthmovers by the mining mafia in that region, he organised sand workers into a militant movement
and forced the administration to stop the use of JCB machines. He later organised the sand workers
on a bigger scale and built a sand mining workers union at state level. He was the state secretary of this union. He also
worked among peasants and trade union front. He contested once from Maner assembly constituency as CPIML candidate.
Comrade Gopal was the member of Patna district committee of the CPIML and was relieved from this responsibility on
health grounds. He was also a very good stage actor and dancer and acted in a play on the life of Shahid-e-Azam Bhagat
Singh in Patna. In him the party has lost a multitalented comrade and leader. He is survived by his wife, four daughters
and a son. We send our condolences to his bereaved family and friends.
Red Salutes to Comrade Gopal Singh! n

Dr. Samar Bagchi

Dr. Samar Bagchi, a science educator, environmentalist and people's rights activist passed
away on July 20, 2023. Born in Bihar, Dr. Bagchi's illustrious career began at the Birla In-
dustrial & Technological Museum in Kolkata, where he served as the esteemed director until
1990. During his tenure, inspired by Tagaore, Marx and Gandhi he spearheaded a trans-
formation in experimental science education in India, revolutionizing the way students per-
ceived and engaged with the subject. He had innumerable articles, talks and field level work-
shops on People's Science and Environmental Conservation. He was also associated with
the 'National Alliance of People's Movements In the Eighties, he was a well-known face on
television with Partha Ghosh as a host of Quest, the interactive science quiz programme on
Doordarshan nationally.

Dr. Samar Bagchi's departure leaves a void in the world of people's science and struggle for a better world. n

34 | AUGUST 2023 | LIBERATION - CENTRAL ORGAN OF CPI(ML)

 Countrywide Protest Against
Sexual Assault on Kuki Women in Manipur
Protests and sit-ins were organised across the country on July 21 by CPIML, AIPWA, AISA and various
progressive organisations and citizens groups against the violence in Manipur and criminal silence of
the Modi-Biren double engine government. Condemning the acts of sexual violence against women
and impunity provided to perpetrators by the government, the protesters demanded resignation Home
Minister Amit Shah and Manipur CM N Biren Singh.

It’s been more than two months since ethnic violence, stoked by BJPs divisive policies began in Manipur.
Despite numerous reports of mass crimes, killings and rapes/ gang rapes, both the state and central
government criminally ignored the calls for justice. From gangrapes and sexual violence to burning
people's homes, the last 80 days have seen unspeakable acts in Manipur aided and instigated by the
BJP government and RSS machinery.

Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya, GS, CPIML Liberation, speaking at the protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar said
that what is happening in Manipur is what we saw in Kashmir. It is the nefarious agenda of the BJP
government to communally divide the people and the nation. Women, Dalits, Adivasis, Minorities and all
sections of the society are under the fascist attack.

"The incidents in Manipur are symptomatic of the complete apathy and the capacity to manufacture
violence of the RSS-BJP regime. The people of the country are realising it every day and challenging it
every day," added Com. Dipankar.

AISA Delhi State Secretary, Com. Neha spoke calling upon the government to ensure peace in Manipur,
saying, "N Biren Singh and his party have not only failed, but instigated the violence happening. The fact
that two Kuki women had to go through this trauma publicly for the Prime Minister to speak up is shameful
for the country."

Protest demonstrations were also held in West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Karbi Anglong, Jharkhand, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Uttarakhand among other states. People from all over the country are
calling upon the government to act steadfastly and ensure peace and justice in Manipur.
 R.N.I. No. 55777/93
Posting Date : 27-28 of every month P. R. No. DL(E)—11/5156/2021-23
Published on 26th of every month Posting at New Delhi G.P.O.

1996 BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE

On 11 July 1996, Ranveer Sena, a private
army of upper caste landlords brutally
massacred 21 people (11 women; five girls
below 10 years; four boys below 8 years;
and one man) in the hamlet of Bathani
Tola of Bhojpur (Bihar), most of whom
were dalit and Muslim landless poor. The
massacre began at 2 in the afternoon, and
for the next three hours, assailants from the
neighbouring Badki Khadanv village set fire
to huts, slashed women and children with
swords, and continued firing bullets. There
was a police station a mere 100 metres
away, and 3 other police camps about 1-2
kms away in different directions. But no
police interrupted the dance of death, and
Bathani Tola was left to defend itself. In
2012, the Patna High Court acquitted 23
men convicted of the murders and with the
appeal against the acquittal pending in the
Supreme Court, victims of the massacre
still await justice.
The memorial of the Bathani tola martyrs
tells us the story of India's battle for justice
and people's rights. It is also a reminder
that, in these times those perpetrators have
alligned themselves with the communal-
fascist forces that aim to push the country
back into the dark chapter of brutality and
injustice.

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EDITOR : Arindam Sen @cpimlliberation